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THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

TWELVE PLAYS 



BY 
HENRY B. FULLER 

AUTHOR OF "THE CHATELAINE OF LA TRINITE, 
"THE CHEVALIER OF PENSIERI-VANI," ETC. 




*M OF CO, 
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MAY 4 1B9BJ 






NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 



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Copyright, 1896, by 
Henry B. Fuller. 



All rights reserved. 



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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I The Cure of Souls i 

II On the Whirlwind 21 

III The Love of Love 37 

IV Afterglow 53 

V The Ship Comes In 73 

VI At Saint Judas's 87 

VII The Light that Always Is 103 

VIII The Dead-and-Alive 125 

IX Northern Lights 141 

X The Story-Spinner 161 

XI The Stranger Within the Gates 179 

XII In Such a Night 199 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



THE CURE OF SOULS. 



PERSONS. 

The Sinner. The Ignoramus. 

The Saint. The Woman Worldly Wise. 

The Hermit. A Series of Dumb Shows. 

Ballet Infernal. 

A pool in the heart of the primeval forest. Close beside 
it, a human habitation — half lodge, half chapel. The 
pool is fed by a small stream which, rising high above, 
forms a waterfall over a ledge of rock ; and it is emptied 
by means of a wider stream which flows into a lake lying 
many feet below. Close to the edge of the pool a flock 
of lambs are grazing, and two or three swans, with their 
young, float upon its surface. The spot is closed in by a 
chain of mountain-peaks pink in the latest moment of the 
sunset glow, and upon the lightly ruffled bosom of the 
pool itself one sees the dancing double of the evening star. 

Present : the Saint and the Sinner. She is robed in 
a fluttering tissue of celestial blue ; he is clad in peniten- 
tial garb and reclines on a rustic couch beside which rests 
his harp; he has left some of his best years behind him, 
and his face shows the scars and flushes of a hundred 
strange sins. 



2 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Saint. If I may not dress your wound, I may at 
least sing to you ? 

The Sinner. Ay, sing, — as I would sing to you, were 
not my arm all powerless and my poor harp all tuneless 
and unstrung. Sing; that will dress my spiritual wounds; — 
for the one wound in view, I have a score within. 

The Saint. Let us hope that your harp will one day at- 
tune itself anew. — What shall my song be? Shall I sing 
to the evening star or to my spinning-wheel ? 

The Sinner. You have a spinning-wheel ? 

The Saint. Yes; else these lambs and their fleece would 
go for naught. 

The Sinner. Are the lambs yours ? 

The Saint. I call them mine ; but in truth they belong 
to a wise woman who dwells farther within the recesses of 
the forest. 

The Sinner. Why apart from you ? 

The Saint. To escape the sound of my bell. 

The Sinner. She objects to it ? 

The Saint. She allows it to me. 

The Sinner. Is she a friend ? 

The Saint. I have not yet found her an enemy. 

The Sinner. You spin for her, then — and willingly? 

The Saint. I might do worse. 

The Sinner. You do not love her. Why do you re- 
main here ? 

The Saint. She speaks of a world outside — a world all 
wide and wicked. 

The SlNNER. How much has she told you about it? 

The Saint. Very little. She threatens me with know- 
Ledge of it on days when 1 seem careless or idle. 

The SlNNER. You do QOt wish to learn what she ran tell 
you ? 



THE CURE OF SOULS 3 

The Saint. Not for worlds — not for all the worlds there 
are! 

The Sinner {with a start of joy). Ah, then I have found 
you at last ; my search and my sufferings end here. — Come, 
sing ; sing to your wheel. The stars can sing together, of 
themselves ; — together, and possibly apart. The poor un- 
aided wheel is dumb. 



[The Saint seats herself at her wheel and softly croons 
a little melody.] 

The Sinner. Ah, to listen to that was well worth the 
climb. How many do climb to this place ? 

The Saint. Very few. 

The Sinner. Am I the first ? 

The Saint. Almost. Many, I am told, are they who 
dwell at the foot of the mountain and drink of the waters 
of the salt sea . . . 

The Sinner. I was one of them for years. I did not 
like the draught, but I was loath to strive for betterment. 

The Saint. And there are those, too, who come up as 
far as the lake beneath us. Few rise higher. A hermit 
dwells there who tells them that they are satisfied. 

The Sinner. I have drunk of his waters and have tried 
to believe in his words. But neither met my needs. 

The Saint. A few leave him below and clamber up to 
this pool. Here is my ministry. 

The Sinner. Your pool is better than his lake, but there 
must be something better still. 

The Saint. There is : the spring above us, which makes 
the fall and feeds the pool and helps to form the great sea 
itself. To this spring I lead such as may .desire. 



4 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Sinner. You shall lead me to it, when I am 
stronger — unless I am too wicked to approach it. 

The Saint. How wicked are you ? 

The Sinner. I am the sum of all wickednesses. 

The Saint. Tell me some of them. 

The Sinner. But you have refused to hear them. 

The Saint. From my wise woman — yes. But it would 
be different coming from you. 

The Sinner. If I were to tell you truly, your chaste 
eyes — 

The Saint. Must my chaste eyes be forever content 
with the snow-peaks reflected in my pool? Your eyes — 
how different they are ! — they glitter and burn ; they scin- 
tillate with the unseen sights of the universe. 

The Sinner. And your pure cheeks — 

The Saint. I have already seen them Hush a hundred 
times in my faithful mirror spread out here before us. But 
it is your cheeks that I regard. They are yet young, but 
they are seared and scarred, and one may well wonder 
what has made them so. 

The Sinner. But do not ask. Else your timid ears — 

The Saint. My ears — I have almost forgotten their 
uses. They hear little save the rustling of the trees, the 
lapping of these waters, the bleating of yonder lambs. 
But yours — yours have heard a thousand things that stab 
and sting . . . 

The Sinner. You are right. For 1 have lived, and I 
have helped a few others to live too. And many more 
to die. 

The Saint. To die? 

The Sinner. Yes; for the wrongs 1 have wrought have 
in.i been wrought upon myself alone. If you could but 
know of the evil that follows upon the exercise o\ wart- 



THE CURE OF SOULS 5 

stricted power, upon the unhampered wreaking of one's 
own will . . . 

The Saint. Tell me. 

The Sinner. No, no ; I dare not. I must be silent — 
alike for your sake and for my own. 

[Nevertheless, the misty veil of the waterfall is parted 
and reveals a rocky recess behind it. The walls of this 
recess take upon themselves the semblance of a subter- 
ranean dungeon; a rack is visible, and close beside it a 
figure like that of the Sinner himself directs the horrible 
procedure of the torture-chamber. At the same time a 
wild cry is heard.] 

The Sinner (starting). What is that sound ? {He turns 
suddenly and sees the spectacle behind the waterfall. Then, 
to the Saint :) No, no; you need not look that way. The 
cry was not behind us ; it was overhead. ( The waterfall, 
resuming its earlier course, shuts out the view of the cavern.) 
Look up, look up ! — an eagle slowly circling in the sky 
above us. 

The Saint. I see him. I pray he may do no harm. 

The Sinner. He is selfish — like every other creature; 
he will snatch what he requires. If you could but know 
the deadly length to which the self-seeker may go . . . 

The Saint. Tell me. 

The Sinner. No, no; I dare not. I must be silent — 
alike for your sake and for my own. 

[Notwithstanding this, the veil of the waterfall parts a 
second time and reveals a shipwreck festering on a wide 
waste of stagnant waters. Two living figures struggle 
feebly for the last crumb of bread and the last drop of 



6 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

water. One of them, in the likeness of the Sinner him- 
self, stabs the other and pushes his body overboard into 
the sea.] 

The Sinner (groaning deeply, after having cast a sidelong 
glance in the direction of the waterfall). Oh ! oh ! Might 
I but forget it ! 

The Saint. You are in pain. Your wound again be- 
gins to burn ? 

The Sinner. And to bleed. But it is a wound whose 
gash you cannot see, whose fever you cannot feel. For I 
have done — that ; ay, worse — far worse — than that. 
If you could but know the heights to which an insensate 
fury can rise . . . 

The Saint. Tell me. 

The Sinner. No, no; I dare not. I must be silent — 
alike for your sake and for my own. 

[But his silence does not prevent the parting of the 
watery veil for yet a third time. There appears the street 
of a city given over to sack and slaughter. A frenzied 
figure, like that of the Sinner's self, rushes hither and 
thither witli a dripping sword, and the pavement is red 
with the blood of defenseless women and of suckling in- 
fants. Again a cry is heard — louder and more piercing.] 

The Sinner (placing himself between the Saint and the 
waterfall). No! Look, rather, there. {He points to the 
farther side of the pool. ) 

The Saint. He is swooping down! My poor swans 
— can nothing save them ? Come, let us hasten round . . . 

The Sinner. Ay, let us rescue one innocent, at least. 
Lei me atone now for the ruthless sacrifices of other days. 



THE CURE OF SOULS j 

[He rises with a sudden start. But his wound breaks 
out afresh and his bandages are dyed with blood. He 
sinks back panting.] 

The Sinner. Too late ! too late ! I cannot serve you. 

The Saint. Too late ! too late ! We cannot save it. See 
yon poor cygnet borne away, leaving nothing behind but 
a few fluttering feathers and a few pitiful drops of blood ! 

The Sinner. I am too evil to be permitted one work 
of good. I am worse, far worse, than you can know. If 
you could but conceive the depths into which a man may 
be plunged by uncontrollable passion. . . . 

The Saint. Tell me. I could forgive you. 

The Sinner. No, no ; I must be silent. For you shall 
do much more than merely to forgive. 

[Yet the merciless veil of the waterfall parts for a fourth 
time. It reveals an orgy in a vast and splendid banquet 
hall. A figure like that of the Sinner forms the center of 
the revel ; one arm holds aloft a wine-cup ; the other en- 
circles a jeweled wanton's waist.] 

A Voice. Tell her ; tell her. 

[The Woman Worldly Wise advances from the edge 
of the darkening forest.] 

The Sinner (groaning in anguish alike of body and of 
spirit). No, no ! 

The Woman Worldly Wise. I understand who and 
what you are. I have heard of your pilgrimage through 
our forest. You did well to pass that hermit by. For 
you seek redemption — is it not true ? 



8 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Sinner. Yes. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. Then let all be con- 
fessed ; let all be known. For knowledge is the way to 
redemption. 

The Sinner. You are wrong. I know too much already. 
Knowledge is the way to damnation. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. Will ignorance heal your 
wound? Never. Acknowledge all. and I will cure you. 
Tell me everything, or I will tell — her. And then her 
ignorance — at last enlightened — will be powerless to 
help you. 

The Sinner. Ah, you have confirmed my highest 
hopes! Know, in return, that I depend not upon igno- 
rance, but upon innocence. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. They are the same. — 
Look, girl ! (She points to the waterfall, where the orgy 
still proceeds at an ever-mounting, ever-maddening pace!) 

The Sinner. No. no; do not look, 1 beg you! If you 
do, it will be your ruin, and mine as well ! 

[The Saint, despite herself, turns her eyes toward the 
waterfall, which she contemplates long and earnestly with 
an expression of puzzled questioning.] 

The Saint. What am I asked to see? There is no- 
thing save the spray of the waterfall swaying in the breeze 
of evening. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. But there is more be- 
hind . . . 

The Sinner (with his hand on his wound, yet in a tone 
of triumph). 11a ! evil-minded hag ! See now that igno- 
rance and innocence are not the samel 

The Woman Worldl\ Wise {to the Saint). But can 



THE CURE OF SOULS 9 

you not hear, then, poor fool ? The drunken shouts, the 
ribald oaths, the blasphemous — Ah (exultingly), in my 
day, I knew them all, and more ! 

The Saint (with her hand upon the rope of her bell). I 
hear only your words, which have no meaning for me, 
and the tones of my own bell, which never fails to sound 
at the vesper hour. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. That bell ! — that tire- 
some, hateful bell ! Stop it ; what meaning does it hold ? 
What good has it ever done ? 

[The Hermit emerges from the forest and advances 
slowly, leaning on his staff.] 

The Hermit. One good at least: it has guided me to 
this spot. 

The Sinner. Are you come to tell, too, more than 
should be known ? 

The Hermit. I know your errand and your hope. 
You seek redemption. I would help you to it. Why did 
you pass me by to halt at this deceitful place? You 
should have remained with me, sharing my seclusion and 
meditation. 

The Sinner. I can meditate anywhere at all. I must, 
indeed ; I have no choice. And as for seclusion, is yours, 
on your lower level, more perfect than this ? 

The Hermit. But the companionship of woman- 
kind . . . 

The Sinner. My salvation shall be worked out amidst 
all the elements that make up this present world. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. Ay, and the world 
means knowledge of the world. You are for me — believe 
it. Leave this forceless old man; leave this untutored 



io THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

child. I know herbs ; I can heal your wound upon the 
instant . . . 

The Sinner. Hush, temptress ! The wound you see is 
only one of many. 

[The early moon has risen. Its beams lie slantingly 
upon the waterfall and weave a rainbow from its spray. 
The swans have sought their beds along the sedgy shores 
of the pool, and the lambs are folded in the shelter of a 
wide-spreading tree. 

Suddenly the Ignoramus, holding a half-tamed lion in 
leash, comes bounding down the mountain-side. In his 
belt he carries a knife and a flower indescribably brilliant 
and pungent. He stands regarding the group before him 
with an expression of vacant good-nature.] 

The Sinner. Who is this youth ? 

The Hermit. I know him. I have seen him once be- 
fore, and have heard of him oftener than that. I have 
heard, indeed, that he bears within him the saving grace 
of innocence — that he vibrates with the heavenly power 
of one who is completely attuned to nature. 

The Sinner {fretfully). Why should he stand here 
gaping at nothing? If he is a fount of harmony, let him 
string my harp anew and play upon it. 

The Hermit {to the Ignoramus, toward whom lie ex- 
tends the harp). Can you play upon this? {The Igno- 
ramus nods with a bright confidence.) 

The Sinner. Can you tunc it ? ( 77ie [GNORAMUS nods 
as before.) Then let him have it. 

[The Ignoramus snatches the harp with a glad curios- 
ity. Within a moment he has snapped its strings, crushed 



THE CURE OF SOULS n 

its frame, and has thrown its fragments, with a chuckle of 
fond delight and of challenged approval, upon the ground.] 

The Sinner. He is a fool. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. He has better powers 
than those of his hands. He has stronger forces within 
his belt — did he but know how to employ them. 

The Hermit. The knife ? 

The Woman Worldly Wise. And the flower. Have 
you not noticed its flaming petals ? Have you not per- 
ceived its pungent perfume? {To the Sinner.) One 
touch from that blossom would heal your wound. Shall I 
snatch it ? 

The Sinner {groaning in pain and vexation). I wish no 
aid either from you or yours. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. He is naught of mine — 
though I might easily make him so. But I can cure you 
without his help. Let me do it. 

The Sinner. Only innocence can redeem me. 

The Hermit. He is innocent. 

The Sinner. You mistake. He is ignorant. 

The Woman Worldly Wise {pointing to the Saint). 
She is ignorant. 

The Sinner. You mistake again. She is innocent. 

The Hermit. You are stubborn. Turn away from this 
fatal preference. At least defend your own logic. 

The Sinner. In man innocence is mere ignorance; in 
woman ignorance is but innocence. Nothing is simpler. 
I have to choose between the ignorance of man and the 
innocence of woman, and I have made my choice. 

[The Ignoramus, who has been standing in smiling 
doubt, suddenly draws his knife, seizes one of the lambs, 



12 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

slits its throat, and throws its body to the lion. The lion 
retires with its booty within the dark edge of the wood.] 

The Saint {with a faint cry). My lamb ! 

The Sinner [with a shout of helpless rage). Her lamb ! 
her lamb ! What do you mean, O blundering fool ? 

The Woman Worldly Wise. The lamb is mine. This 
youth is indeed a fool. But (to the Sinner) what is one 
lamb to you ? — you who have rent your scores ! 

The Hermit. He is a fool, yes ; a blunderer, no. There 
is more power, more grace, more salvation in his simple 
folly than in all our wisdom. (The Ignoramus offers an 
inane smile alike to praise and to blame.) 

The Sinner. Why am I to believe that ? 

The Hermit. Because I say so. 

The Sinner. I will not believe you. I will not be aided 
by you. Nor by his ignorance. Nor by her knowledge. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. What then shall save 
you ? 

The Sinner. This maiden's innocence. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. Then she shall be inno- 
cent no longer. For she shall — know. Look! (She 
waves her hand toward the waterfall.) But it is not I, re- 
member, who call up this vision ; that is the work of your 
own guilty heart and gnawing conscience. Look, all of 
you ! 

[Ballet. — The veil of the waterfall parts once more 
and shows the cavern aflame with an unearthly light and 
a-swarm with many madly-swirling figures. Lines of stag- 
gering bacchantes weave to and fro, to the piercing notes 
ol reeds and viols and to the delicate tingle and clang oi 
brasses. — A vast burning heart bursts asunder, and l'l Mr- 



THE CURE OF SOULS 13 

tation herself, robed in clamorous scarlet and crowned 
with flaring flames, comes whirling to the fore.] 

The Woman Worldly Wise {to the Sinner). Do you 
see it ? 

The Sinner. In part. But there is a great canopied 
throne which still rests in shadow. Who sits upon it ? 

The Woman Worldly Wise. The Master of the Revels. 
You shall see his face in good time. 

[The Hermit, meanwhile, sunk on his knees and with 
his hands pressed against his eyes, tremblingly strives to 
stammer out a prayer. The Ignoramus, starting forward 
with a fierce joy dawning upon his face, emits inarticulate 
cries of rapture at the spectacle, and in anticipation of 
other spectacles yet to succeed. The Saint glances from 
one to another of the group with an air of plaintive ques- 
tioning.] 

The Woman Worldly Wise. Enough of that. Let 
other revels follow. 

[The plants that fringe and frame the waterfall now ex- 
pand into gigantic blooms of amazing brilliancy; their 
crinkled edges flame with hell-fire. Within the cavern, 
bands of fauns and satyrs, accompanied by bassoons and 
cymbals, sweep in giddy circles round a whited sepulcher. 
The sepulcher is suddenly rent in twain, and Perdition, 
powdered with gold and clad in voluminous swirls of float- 
ing black gauze, comes reeling through their ranks. Her 
eyes flash and scintillate with exultant terrors ; and the 
Hermit, trembling in every limb, falls half prostrate on 
the ground, while the Ignoramus, with a wild shout of 



14 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



rapture, snatches the blossom from his belt and throws it 
at her feet.] 

The Woman Worldly Wise. Aha! an apt pupil, in- 
deed ! There is much for me to teach him, and he will 
learn it — oh, he will learn it! 

The Sinner. You shall not have him. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. How can you save him ? 
You have yet to save yourself. 

The Saint. You are an evil woman. I have long feared 
so. (She gropes for the rope of her bell, but cannot find it in 
the dark.) 

[Pas de Deux. — Through the floor rise Ruination and 
Damnation (a man among women) decked in desperate 
convolutions of red and black and yellow. They swirl and 
swing and swoon, before a shifting array of imps and devils. 
A fierce light beats upon their gyrations, but the throne be- 
hind them still remains in shadow.] 

The Sinner. Again I ask — Who sits upon that throne? 

The Woman Worldly Wise. You shall know in good 
time. [To the Saint.) Look, girl; here are things to see 
that you have never seen before. 

The Saint. My eyes are not your eyes. [She folds her 
hands and looks up at the stars that shine alh :r the mountain- 
tops.) 

[Pas Seul by the prima assoluta, TORMENT-EvERLAST- 
[NG. She is clothed in the coruscations of clear combus- 
tion, all crisp and crinkling and crimson. T<> the streams 
of violins, the shrieks of trumpets ami the shivers of drums 

she trips and twists with an unconquerable and inexhaus- 



THE CURE OF SOULS 



'5 



tible agility through ranks and rows of quivering flames ; 
her limbs are distorted by tendons racked and strained, 
and her face is wreathed with an endless succession of 
agonizing smiles. The Hermit, with his hands writhing 
in a locked twist, lies prostrate upon the chapel steps, while 
the Ignoramus is seen madly floundering through the pool 
toward the cavern.] 

The Sinner. But who sits in the shadow on that throne? 
The Woman Worldly Wise. The time has come for 
you to know. 

[The inner stage is invaded by a flood of nymphs, sirens, 
bacchantes, satyrs, amoretti, imps and demons. They 
presently flow to right and left in two great waves, and 
leave an open way up to the steps that rise to the canopied 
seat.] 

The Woman Worldly Wise. It is you who sit upon 
that throne. 

The Sinner. You lie. I am not seated there. You 
cannot place me there. You cannot show me there. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. I shall. 

The Sinner (now standing close beside the Saint). Try, 
then ! — You cannot. 

The Woman Worldly Wise (to the Saint). Look, girl. 
You have seen his associates. Now I will show you the 
man himself in the midst of them. 

The Saint. I do not know what you mean. I see only 
what the evening has often brought me : the rainbow above 
my waterfall and the spray that sparkles upon its shrubs 
and vines. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. You know more than you 



1 6 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

will confess. Well, then, if you will not look, only listen. 
If you will not listen, only smell. Have you no nose for 
sulphur, for brimstone, for the fumes of the Pit ? 

The Saint. Your presence is the only stench. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. Ha ! You dare to — ? 

The Sinner. Peace, hag ! You boast your knowledge : 
learn at last to recognize the truth when spoken. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. But she shall see one 
thing : she shall see you upon that throne. Look ! 

[The throne is suddenly illumined. It is empty. The 
Woman, with a shriek of rage and mortification, falls half 
fainting to the ground.] 

The Saint. I think that she is mad. I think the evil 
spirits possess her. I will ring my bell. 

[She rings it. The throng within the cavern vanishes. 
The rainbow again spans the waterfall, and in its spray the 
Ignoramus, beslimed with mud and torn by the jagged 
rocks, is seen in a gasping struggle for his life. J 

The Sinner {taking the hand of the Saint). Come, let 
us leave this place ; let us ascend to the spring. You can 
no longer live here alone — you would be no safer than 
your swans and your lambs. Your touch strengthens me ; 
we will make the ascent together. Where lies the path? 

The Saint. There; on the other bank of the stream. 

The SINNER. How shall we cross to it ? 

The Hermit {rising oh his elbows). Let me save you. 

The Woman Worldly W *ling to her ( 

Let me save you. 



THE CURE OF SOULS I? 

The Ignoramus [in a vain repetition, as he drags him- 
self to land). Let me save you. 

The Sinner. Away with you, one and all ! I place no 
trust in trembling feebleness, in floundering ignorance, in 
knowledge of worldly evil. I have chosen my guide. 

The Woman Worldly Wise. Follow her — a guide 
indeed ! One with neither sense nor senses ! Yet you 
trust her to lead you to peace and to paradise ! 

The Sinner [to the Saint). How do we cross to the 
other bank ? Must we wade through the pool ? 

The Saint. No. 

The Sinner. Must we pass through the cavern ? 

The Saint. I know of no cavern. 

The Sinner. Then . . . 

The Saint. We shall cross over on the rainbow. 

The Sinner. The rainbow ? That may be done, per- 
haps — but by the gods alone. 

The Saint. We are become gods — for we have the 
knowledge of good and of evil. 

The Sinner [with a flush). Yes, we possess — between 
us — the knowledge of all evil and of all good. 

The Saint. Come, give me your hand. 

[They pass over on the rainbow and take in the moon- 
light the upward path. The Three who remain behind 
slink back with downcast mien into the dark forest.] 



ON THE WHIRLWIND 



ON THE WHIRLWIND. 

"Rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm." 

PERSONS. 

The Master. The Millionaire. 

His Pupil. A Girl, his Daughter. 

A Young Lieutenant. An Old Pressman. 

A workshop in the midst of a vast city and high above 
it. Wide windows command the roofs that shelter a mil- 
lion people and the harbor to which has come for genera- 
tions the tribute of a world. A high wind sweeps freely 
round ; it causes the defiant flaunting of a myriad flags — 
but the same flag always, and it will bring at intervals 
great swirling clouds of dun and pungent smoke. Outside 
the harbor one sees an aggregation of enormous ironclads, 
whose flag is not the flag above the roofs all round about: 
the clouds of smoke, too, will come from that same quarter, 
for the smoke is to be the smoke of battle. 

The room is cumbered with the varied apparatus of 
science, and through every window the air is seen to be 
cut by the black lines of multitudes of wires that radiate 
to every point of the compass. 

The Master, a grave, self-absorbed man of thirty-five, 
stands looking out at one of the windows. No one can 
be sure of what he sees, or of his seeing anything at all ; 
it can only be certain that his hands, with corded veins and 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



half-purpled nails, are strained in a motionless and vise- 
like grip behind his back. 



The Pupil (a young fellow of twenty). They have 
called for a million more men. 

The Lieutenant [his arm in a sling). I am a man, 
and I have answered a call already. 

The Pupil. And for a thousand millions of money. 

The Millionaire (his hand in his pocket). I have my 
millions and I have given freely. 

The Lieutenant. The men are forthcoming — we are 
populous. 

The Millionaire. And the millions — we are rich. 

The Pupil. We have them already — men and money 
alike. 

The Girl. Already ? 

The Pupil. Yes; they are here. The million men 
stand looking out of that window. The millions of money 
are held between those hands. 

[From the sea there comes suddenly a dull roar ; the 
battle-ships are at once half-lost in their own smoke. The 
Master gives a quick start.] 

The Lieutenant. The hour has struck. They are 
doing whal they have threatened. 

The Girl. Who could have believed that they would do 
it? — that they would dare to do it? Can s<> many efforts, 
so many sacrifices, all go in vain ? 

The Millionaire [to theM.\>v\ R . Wake, man; this i> 
your moment! Every second of delay means untold loss 
and suffering. 

The PUPIL. Trust him. You hear too plainly the cries 



ON THE WHIRLWIND 



23 



and blows that assail our outer door. The populace in the 
streets below call up to the prophets on the landing-stage ; 
and the prophet-scribes, with tablet and stylus, appeal to the 
priests ; but let not these unduly importune the god him- 
self. He will act of his own will, at his own time, in his 
own way. Let them go on clamoring for the miracle; it 
will be wrought in due course. 

[A shell from the sea flies in a long curve through the 
air and explodes disastrously not half a mile away. There 
is a feeble response from shore. And from the roofs of the 
city, black with people, thousands of invoking arms and 
thousands of imploring voices are sent upward to the Mas- 
ter's tower.] 

The Millionaire. Look ! The time is come ! No 
more delay ! 

The Lieutenant. Come, do the deed quickly — in rec- 
ognition of our help. 

The Girl. And in justification of our faith. 

The Millionaire. Remember the thousands that our 
vaults have yielded up to you. 

The Lieutenant. Remember the assistance that my 
fellow officers have rendered you. 

The Master. It is a dreadful thing to do. There are 
ten thousand of them, if there are twenty. 

The Millionaire. Is it worse for one man to slay ten 
thousand than for ten thousand to slay a million and to lay 
their city in ruins ? 

The Lieutenant. The triumph is to be yours, not theirs : 
enjoy it. 

The Master. My triumph consists not in doing, but in 
knowing that I can do. {He turns away again.) 



24 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Millionaire. You must do it — and at once. Lives 
and property are in danger. I command you. (He lays 
an eager hand upon the Master's arm.) 

The Pupil (sweeping- his hand aside). Learn your place ! 
Is this the way you can treat a genius ? — a man who is able 
to bring the unseen to our eyes, the unheard to our ears, 
who can weigh what no one else can even lay hold upon — 
a man who has wrenched the hidden forces from the earth 
and the air, and has learned how to drag forth mysterious 
powers from the deep bosom of the sea itself! 

The Millionaire. So you tell us; so you have told us 
many times within the last fortnight. Now let him do it. 

The Lieutenant.' Let me do it. (He rushes impulsively 
across to a table in the midst of whose tangle of wires and 
plates and tubes there rests a broad board set thick with 
levers, knobs and keys.) Which is the one ? 

The Pupil. Hands off! Do you know what you 
might do ? 

The Lieutenant. Do? Something — anything; this is 
the time, if ever. 

The Pupil. You have done something already; let that 
suffice. 

The Girl. Indeed he has. We have not found him 
satisfied to sit in safety far above the city. He has gone 
down like a man. He has taken his sword in hand — 

The Pupil. Yes, yes; I know. He has mounted upon 
the breastwork, he has shouted, he has waved his blade; 
while I, poor coward, have done nothing more worthy 
than to fill jars and to couple wires. To wave and shout 
upon a breastwork, — that is gallant, that is picturesque, 
that is exhilarating. Put what, in the end, have you thou- 
sands of wavers and shunters accomplished? 

The GlRL. They have done their best. 



ON THE WHIRLWIND 



2 5 



The Master {turning slowly). Their best, Oswald. Even 
if one's best amounts to nothing, still it is one's best and 
should have praise as such. 

The Lieutenant. Thanks for that generous concession ! 

The Millionaire {looking through his glass). They 
are preparing to follow up the attack. Their decks swarm 
with jaunty officers all careless of danger; the men aloft 
laugh across from crow's-nest to crow's-nest and wave 
their hands in jest . . . ! {Throws down his glass.) Act, 
man; act! 

[Another dull roar is heard, and again a great snioke- 
cloud obscures the harbor. The wind sweeps over the 
populous roofs at a wilder pace and bears the fumes of 
battle with it. The flags below flaunt with a fiercer defi- 
ance, but one of them, not a furlong distant, now flaps all 
torn and shredded in the gale. A shell strikes the proud 
building above which it rises.] 

The Millionaire. Man, man, are you benumbed? 
That building is mine — mine! If you care nothing for 
the city, at least do something for the citizen whose money 
has made all your experiments and investigations possible. 
Oh, where are the fortresses that we should have built ? 
where are the ships that we should have floated ? Far 
better to have surrendered — to have paid a ransom . . . ! 
Quick, quick ! touch the key ! 

The Master. The time is approaching. But they 
must be made to understand who has saved them, and 
how, and from what. I look for no other return. 

The Girl. You can look for the fervent gratitude of a 
great country. 



26 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Lieutenant. And for all the honors that this mag- 
nificent city can bestow. 

The Millionaire. And for money beyond your utmost 
needs. 

The Pupil. And for a fame that can never die. 

The Master {to the Pupil, with a melancholy smile which 
ignores the others). You may be right, Oswald. For that 
are we poets. 

[A wild tumult of yells ascends from the street. And 
there is a medley of scuffles and cries on the other side of 
the workshop door. J 

The Pupil. Again the crowd calls up to the prophets, 
and the prophets — true or false — pass on the word. {To 
the Master.) Let us meet their demand. 

The Millionaire. If you can, if you can! — You can- 
not ! My hope, my trust, my money, all gone for naught ! 
My property destroyed before my very eyes ! — they know 
that I have helped to make you possible ! 

The Pupil [ironically). Your fame is world-wide, even 
now! What that we may do could make it wider? 

The Master. Hush, Oswald. {He advances toward 
the table and places his hand upon one of the keys. Then, 
pausing, lie turns to the Girl with a touch of timid and 
awkward gallantry.) Would you like to do it ? 

The Pupil {hastening to his side and speaking in a low, 
hurried tone). What ! you, the great mind of the age, yield 
up such a moment to a mere casual bystander! The end 
crowns the work ; the work crowns you ; you should place 
the crown upon your own head. 

The Master {with an embarrassed smile). Hardly a 
casual bystander, Oswald; she has been here every day 



ON THE WHIRLWIND 27 

for a fortnight, and I had thought to recognize her inter- 
est. We must try to bear in mind that part of the world 
which lies outside of science — we are but too likely to 
forget it. 

The Pupil. But it shall never forget us. 

The Master {aloud, to the Girl). Come, will you press 
the key ? 

[The Girl scans the harbor; then she looks into the 
Master's face and silently shrinks away.] 

The Master {to himself). I knew it ! I have suspected 
it for days. — Yet I am a human being, after all. 

The Lieutenant. It is an awful thing, but it must be 
done. It is no woman's work — let me do it. 

[The Girl looks at him with a startled admiration ; then 
she lays a detaining hand upon his arm.] 

The Millionaire. Then let me do it; no one, I am 
sure, has better earned the right — 

The Pupil. We do not deny the right to bravery, nor 
even to beauty ; but the right of mere — I will do it. 

The Master. Hush, Oswald. (His hand again ad- 
vances toward the keyboard.) 

[Renewed disorder outside the door. Cries of " Hold 
him back ! " " No favor must be shown ! " " He cannot 
enter unless we enter too ! " The Pressman precipitates 
himself into the room, with torn clothes and bleeding face.] 

The Pressman {calling back). It is as a friend that I am 
admitted; I am not meaning to take an unfair advantage. 



28 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

[He slams the door and braces himself against it. The 
Pupil hastens to strengthen his resistance.] 

The Pupil. How did you dare do this ? 

The Pressman. Bar the door — quick, quick! They 
would pull me to pieces. — My key, my key ! — where is 
it ? where have I dropped it ? 

The Pupil. On this side of the door, I hope. But here 
is mine. 

The Pressman {recovering his breath, to the Master). 
Why this delay ? The whole town is in a frenzy, a panic. 
— What ! you have tried and failed ? Failed ! — my God, 
my God ! 

The Pupil. We have not failed. We have not tried. 

The Pressman. Then try, in Heaven's name! Within 
an hour the city will be a mere heap of smoking ruin, and 
those of us who are left alive will be a mass of pitiful beg- 
gars preying upon one another for the means of daily life. 
Act, man ; act ! A moment's delay may mean your own 
ruin and death. You little know the temper of the crowd 
I fought my way through up your stairs. Act; you are 
our only hope. 

The Master. The only hope should be beyond rough 
handling. 

The Pressman. Then haste to put it there. Come, 
what is the thing to be done? {He advances toward the 
keyboard?) If no one else will do it. let me do it. 

The Pupil [pinning him in his arms and throwing him 
back). What presumption! What insolence! We forge 
the sword and you would show us how to wield it! 

[Another cannonade from the sea. A shell explodes 
within a hundred /ards of the MAST] R'S tower and tears 



ON THE WHIRLWIND 



29 



to sudden tatters the flag that strains in the gale from his 
window-ledge.] 

The Millionaire. They know, they know ! I told you 
that they knew ! 

The Pupil. We shine by your light. — But act, my 
master; act. 

[The Master, standing at his table with a drooping 
head, takes a deep reluctant breath and applies a long 
slow pressure to one of the keys. There is a vast and in- 
stantaneous response. He remains standing in an unaltered 
attitude, but the others, hastening to the window, see what 
no man has ever seen before, and hear what no man has 
ever heard. New forces have been summoned from the 
water and from the air and find themselves for the first 
time face to face in the service of man. The darkened 
sky seems full of vast gleaming scimitars; the sea splits 
widely into a great yawning chasm ; the land rocks, and 
immeasurable clouds compounded of smoke and of spray 
and of new things yet without a name reel madly over the 
town and past the tower : for the elements of the elements 
have been loosed at last, and in a wider way than one has 
ever dared to dream the work of creation has been un- 
done.] 

The Pupil (exullingly, though nothing can yet be distin- 
guished within the area where the cloud and the noise have 
alike been generated). The millions of men and the thou- 
sand millions of money. 

The Girl {dazed). What have they done ? 

The Pupil (perversely). Nothing. 



3 r -> 



THt PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Girl (trying to look toward the Master). What 
has he done ? 

The Master (immovable, with eyes still downcast). 
What was necessary. 

The Millionaire (struggling to master his own awe). 
Why did you wait so long? 

The Master. The quarrel was hardly mine. What, to 
one who would search out the very life-essence of the 
globe, are the wrangles of the poor insects that swarm 
upon its surface ? 

The Pressman. That was not your reason. Why did 
you wait so long ? 

The Master. That I might secure the completest ex- 
pression of our city's thanks. How better do this than to 
let the people feel that from which I was about to deliver 
them ? 

The Pupil. Master, you do yourself an injustice. 
Tell us the real reason. Why did you wait so long ? 

[The Master raises his eyes for the first time and looks 
toward the Girl. She, all a-tremble, refuses to meet his 
gaze. Instead, she looks out toward the sea, from which 
the great cloud is lifting and blowing away. She sees 
only a mass of rolling billows upon which no single vestige 
of human life or of human craft is visible. With an hys- 
terical shudder she clasps her hands across her eyes.] 

The Girl. Take me away ! Take me away from this 
horrible place ! Take me away from the presence of this 
terrible man ! 

[The Master drops his head sadly. At the same time 
a wild shout of triumph rises from the roofs ami from the 



ON THE WHIRLWIND 



3' 



streets, and a thousand feet are heard to be swarming up 
the stairs.] 

The Girl (with a mounting fear). They are coming ! 
Take me away ! 

The Pressman. I am the only one who has anything 
to fear! 

The Master {without looking up). The private door, 
Oswald. There is no leaving by the other way, 

[The Girl, accompanied by her Father and the Lieu- 
tenant, retires through a small door on the other side.] 

The Pressman. Sir, you have done a great thing. 

The Pupil. He has done the greatest thing. And he 
is sure of honor and wealth to the end of his days, and of 
fame far beyond that ! 

The Pressman. They will pour riches upon you ; they 
will prepare illuminations for you; they will raise statues 
to you. 

[The Master smiles a melancholy and ironical smile.] 

The Pupil. He shall not be honored merely; he shall 
be worshiped. He need not go from among us to be 
apotheosized ; he is a god already. 

The Pressman. What is the meaning of that smile? 
Do you think otherwise ? 

The Master. Yes. 

The Pressman. Are you thinking that — that the re- 
wards of the world follow their own peculiar courses, and 
that — that he who confers a benefit upon everybody may 
get the thanks of nobody ? 



5- 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Pupil. How can you say that here and now ? 

The Master, Perhaps. 

The Pressman. Are you thinking, too, that you are not 
precisely a part of the established order, and that he who 
serves it, no less than he who amuses it, is likely one day 
to be thrown thanklessly aside ? 

The Pupil. How can you preach so shameful a doc- 
trine ? How can you show yourself so merciless a cynic ? 

The Master. Possibly. 

The Pressman. Are you thinking that one may achieve 
the great new thing and yet bring himself no nearer to 
humanity and to human sympathies ? 

The Pupil. That is not true ! That cannot be true ! 

The Master [glancing sidewise toward the private door). 
That is true. 

[The Millionaire and the Lieutenant appear, lead- 
ing back the Girl from the inner room. | 

The Lieutenant. There is no escape. The crowd is 
as great on one side as on the other. 

The Master {advancing toward the Girl). There is no 
need of escape. You are perfectly safe here. {The Girl 
shrinks back.) 

The Pupil {indignantly). Is this the way you can treat 
a man who is a genius, — who is almost a god ? 

The Girl {upon the verge of hysterics, as she dutches the 
Lieutenant's arm). He may be a god ; or he may be a 
monster. But he is not a man. 

The Pupil. He is more than a man. 

The Girl. He may be more than a man ; or less than 
a man ; or more and less both. But — 

The Pressman. Truly, man is not an Intellectual being, 



ON THE WHIRLWIND 33 

but an emotional being. And woman the same. How 
many more are there who would pass by the gray matter 
in one unique brain for the red fluid that pulses from any 
one of a hundred commonplace hearts ! 

The Girl. I can understand — admire — love the man 
who bravely opposes his own body to those of his fellows ; 
but what can I have save dread for the big, bloodless in- 
telligence that sits aloft and calmly deals out death to ten 
thousand of his own kind . . . ? 

The Master, {sadly). You see. 

The Pressman. I see. He who rides upon the whirl- 
wind must ride alone. 

The Pupil. You shall not ride alone, dear Master. I 
shall have wings to follow you. 

[The sound of a key is heard in the outer door, and the 
scuffling and struggling is renewed.] 

The Pressman. My key ! — they have found it ! 

The Master. The whirlwind is upon us at last. ( To 
the Pressman.) I should not advise you to try to ride 
upon it ! 

The Pupil. But /shall remain with you. 

The Pressman {retiring, with the others, to the inner 
room). They will devastate you like a cloud of locusts . . . 

The Master. An idle interruption : the empty glory of 
an hour ! 

[The Master and his Pupil remain there alone, to op- 
pose the wreckage threatened by a pressing and enthusi- 
astic populace.] 



THE LOVE OF LOVE 



THE LOVE OF LOVE. 



PERSONS. 

The Noble Spinster. The Youth's Mother. 

The Girl's Father. Others of his Family. 

The Girl's Mother. The Intendant of the 

The Girl's Uncle. Monument. 

Others of her Family. A Band of Sailors. 

The Girl's Betrothed. A Train of Servants and At- 

The Youth's Father. tendants. 

A hilltop. A white marble wall, before which is drawn 
up an inexorable array of Doric columns. In the middle 
of the wall is a single doorway, which leads to darkness 
save for the occasional reflection of red flames from with- 
in. On either side of the doorway there stands a burned- 
out brazen funeral torch, and under the colonnade, as well 
as on the steps which rise to it, are stationed several black- 
draped groups that look out toward the horizon-line of the 
sea. They are waiting. It is evening, and above the 
tops of the cypress-trees which lead, in a long avenue, up 
to the foot of the Monument the stars are shining — shin- 
ing coldly, serenely, patiently, impersonally : they do not 
care — they have seen too much. They give no heed to 
the Monument, nor to the convent-isle that whitens in 
their light a league from shore. 



38 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Girl's Mother (moamngly, as the flames once more 
light up the doorway). How long ? How long ? 

The Girl's Father [wlio carries a rich golden urn in 
his hand). Courage, courage. All will be over soon. 

The Youth's Mother [on the other side of the dooncay). 
Let them learn that all are equal here. 

The Youth's Father {who holds a plain earthen urn 
-within the hollow of his arm). Let them learn what the 
lowly have to suffer. Let them learn how long an hour 
may be. 

The Youth's Mother. An hour ? One only ? Two, 
rather ; three. The torches have died out and the stars 
have come. I can stand here no longer. I shall drop 
from fatigue. 

The Youth's Father. Drop ? Before them ? You 
will stand here as you have stood, and you will stand till 
the end. 

The Youth's Mother. Till the end ? There will be 
no end, I think. — See; die Hush upon the doorway once 
more ! 

The Youth's Father. Yes ; but fainter. The flames 
are dying out. The ashes will soon be cold. 

The Youth's Mother. The ashes! the ashes! — Set 
down your urn ; it is heavy, heavy, heavy. 

The Youth's Father. I will hold mine as long as they 
hold theirs. 

The Youth's Mother. Bui curs is heavier. 

The Youth's Father. So is our lot. 

The Youth's Mother. While theirs is richer. 

The Youth's Father. So are their lives. 

The Ymi im\ Mother, [t is we who have made them so. 

The Yoi in' Father. We have given them the best 

I. And what, in return — ? 



THE LOVE OF LOVE 39 

The Youth's Mother. Hush, hush ! Their loss is no 
less than ours. 

[The breeze stirs the tree-tops; it has rippled hillward 
over the sea.] 

The Girl's Mother {to the Father, who is intently 
gazing waterward). What do you see? My eyes are too 
dull and weak for sight. 

The Girl's Father. I see a white spot upon the water. 

The Girl's Mother. It is the convent. I have often 
seen their island from here — and often heard their bell. 
I hear a bell now. 

The Girl's Father. It is not the convent. What I 
see is moving — is moving over the water. It is a sail. I 
hear no bell. 

The Girl's Mother. A sail ? No, no ; do not say a 
sail ! Turn round, I beg you. Do not look longer at 
that cruel sea! 

The Girl's Father. I hear no bell. 

The Girl's Mother. But / hear one. A bell should 
be heard at such a time as this. Some one should ring a 
bell. Some one should ring the convent bell. Some one 
is ringing it. I hear it — I am sure I hear it. 

The Girl's Father [turning again toward the sea). 
There is a sail. I see it plainly now. 

The Girl's Mother. I see no sail. But there is a 
bell. I hear it plainly now. 

The Girl's Father. I hear it too, I think. But it is 
not the convent bell. This is weaker, yet nearer. I think 
the sailors are ringing it. 

The Girl's Mother. The sailors ! Let us not speak 
of sailors ! 



4° 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Girl's Father. Yes, there are sailors. I see 
them. 

The Girl's Mother {turning away). Where do they 
come from ? 

The Girl's Father. Who can tell ? 

The Girl's Mother. Where are they going ? 

The Girl's Father. They are coming here. 

The Girl's Mother. And their bell is tolling — toll- 
ing .. . 

The Girl's Father. The hour ? 

The Girl's Mother. It is tolling — tolling . . . 

[A small ship makes its way landward. Both masts 
carry full sail, and a white-robed figure waves greeting 
from the prow.] 

The Girl's Betrothed (to her Father). Let me hold 
the urn. It is too heavy for you. 

The Girl's Mother. It is lighter than our grief. 

The Girl's Betrothed [taking the urn from her 
Father). Should your sister have known of this? 

The Girl's Father. What — Constantia? No; she 
does well where she is. 

The Girl's Mother. She has given up the world. 
She has her fasts, her prayers, her vigils. 

The Girl's Uncle. She dwells on the island. She will 
pray us all to Heaven. 

The Girl's Father. She has renounced the world — 
and her kindred with it. 

The GlRL's MOTHER. Much has happened that she has 
never known. 

Die Girl's Father. Much is to happen that she will 
never know. 



THE LOVE OF LOVE 



4i 



The Girl's Uncle. She has the sea, the sky, the stars. 

The Girl's Father. She has her books, and her beads, 
and her bells. 

The Girl's Grandmother. She has her thoughts. 
And her memories . . . 

The Girl's Father. She has no memories. She has 
no past. 

The Girl's Uncle. She has the future. She will be 
abbess in good time, and will pray us all to Heaven. 

The Girl's Father. With her books, and her beads, 
and her bells. 

The Girl's Mother. Her bells ! — I hear one of them 
now. 

The Girl's Father. It is not the nuns who are ring- 
ing that bell ; it is the sailors. 

The Girl's Uncle. But why do they do it ? 

The Girl's Grandfather. And why do they ring 
so loud and so long and so unceasingly? Even I can 
hear it. 

The Girl's Mother. And who has told them to do it ? 
And who stands over them to make sure that they never 
cease ? 

[The sound of a prow crunching on the shingle of the 
shore. The last faint glow illumines the lintel of the door- 
way. The breeze freshens ; it is still from the sea.] 

The Youth's Father. Ha ! the sailors ! 

The Youth's Younger Brother. Yes, yes ; I recog- 
nize their voices. 

The Youth's Mother. The sailors, yes. But to-day 
there is one sailor the less. 

The Youth's Father. Who was standing at the prow ? 



42 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Youth's Sister. Some one all in white. 

The Youth's Brother. But none of our sailors dress 
in white. 

The Youth's Mother. It was a woman. I know it 
was a woman. 

The Youth's Father. Perhaps. — I trust our men will 
follow. They should be here — it is right that his com- 
panions should be here. 

The Youth's Aunt [bitterly). True; we are not many. 
They [pointing athwart the doorway) have their hundreds. 

[The Intendant appears in the doorway of the Monu- 
ment.! 



The Intendant {to the Girl's Father). Is the urn 
ready ? 

The Youth's Father. They come before us, even 
here. 

The Youth's Mother. As everywhere. 

The Youth's Brother. The rich go before the poor. 

The Youth's Sister. The haughty before the humble. 

The Girl's Father {advancing with his urn). Yes, it 
is ready. 

The Youth's Father {also advancing). Yes, it is 
ready. It is ready — mine, too, I say. Mine, mine. 
mine! 

The Girl's Father. Back, back ! What do you mean 
by this ? 

The Youth's Brother. It is not we who should be 
second here. 

The Youth's Mother. Our urn is earthen, but rightly 
should be of gold. 



THE LOVE OF LOVE 



43 



The Intendant. Peace, peace. There can be no dis- 
pute at such a time as this. 

The Girl's Uncle. Nor in such a place. Let them 
know the place. Let them know their place ! 

The Youth's Mother. Oh, ingratitude ! You are for- 
getting what you should remember ! 

The Girl's Mother. Oh, insolence ! You are for- 
getting what always has been remembered ! 

[A figure in white appears at the lower end of the cy- 
press-avenue and comes up rapidly, accompanied by the 
scuffling of many feet.] 

The Girl's Father. What can it be ? Who can be 
coming ? 

The Intendant. Who dare to break in thus on this 
solemnity ? 

The Girl's Father (to his major-domo). Go, take a 
dozen of my followers and check the tumult before it 
reaches us. 

The Youth's Mother. It is a woman. I said it was 
a woman. 

The Youth's Father. It is a woman. And our sailors 
are behind her. 

The Girl's Father. It is a woman. It is my sister. It 
is Constantia's self! 

[The Noble Spinster, in the full habit of a nun, and 
with damp and disheveled hair, arrives panting at the 
lowest of the marble steps.] 

The Spinster (mounting ; the sailors remain behind). 
And no one told me ! No one sent me a single word by 
way of message ! 



44 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Girl's Father. You here, Constantia ? You ab- 
sent from your convent ? 

The Girl's Uncle. You sailing the sea alone in the 
darkness of the night ? For shame ! for shame! 

The Girl's Mother. The woman is mad. She is mad. 
Mad. 

The Spinster. And no one would have told me ! No 
one would have told me! 

The Girl's Father. Why should we have told you ? 

The Girl's Mother. You are out of the world — and 
well out of it, too. 

The Girl's Uncle. There are many things that you 
cannot hope to know. 

The Girl's Father. Your niece is dead — yes. Even 
I might well be dead without your hearing of it. There 
are many things that you cannot hope to know. 

The Spinster. But there are things that I can hope to 
know. There are things that I do know. For two even- 
ings I saw no light — neither his nor hers. Then I did 
know. I knew something had befallen. I asked these 
sailors. And then I came. 

The Girl's Mother. Yes, she is mad. Mad. 

The Spinster [suddenly, as she glances at the young man 
beside the Girl's Father). Who is this? 

The Girl's Father. Our child's betrothed. 

The Spinster [with shrill laughter). Our child's be- 
trothed ! And what is he carrying in his hand ? 

The Girl's Father. The urn for her ashes. 

The Spinster [with shriller laughter). The urn for her 
ashes! And why should he carry it ? {Suddenly.) Where 
is his ? 

The Girl's Fa i mi r. His ■> 

The Girl's Bi i roi hed, Mine? 



THE LOVE OF LOVE 



45 



The Spinster. His, his! His, I say! My hero's — 
my sailor's ! 

The Youth's Father [advancing). Here it is. 

The Spinster {frantically). Is this for him ? This ? For 
him — for my hero ? No, no ; it is only of earth ; the 
other is of gold. His must be of gold too. 

The Youth's Father. I can provide nothing better 
than this. 

The Spinster. Then let the other be his. He shall have 
nothing less than gold; for he was mine. Mine, I tell 
you — mine ! 

The Youth's Mother. Yours ? 

The Spinster. Yes, mine. For once I saved his life; — 
just as he, not many hours past, would have saved hers. 

The Girl's Uncle. You saved his life, Constantia? 
What can you mean ? 

The Spinster. I saved his life, I say ! Ask these men. 

The Captain of the Sailors. It is true. His boat was 
wrecked upon their coast, beneath the convent walls. 

The Spinster. I nursed him. I saved him. I learned 
his secret. He was mine, and I gave him up to her. 

The Girl's Mother. His secret? You gave him up? 
To whom ? 

The Spinster. To her — to your daughter. 

The Girl's Father. This is unseemly. 

The Girl's Betrothed. This can never have been. 

The Spinster {to the Girl's Betrothed). I saved his 
life. Whose life have you ever saved ? Hers ? Who 
stood there pale and helpless, two days agone, when the 
ship went down ? He ? Or you ? No ; do not try to 
tell me — blush and be silent. I have heard. I know. 

The Girl's Betrothed (stammeringly). She is mad 
indeed. 



4 6 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Spinster. Yes, he told me all. I knew of his love 
and hers; she came to us on the island. How her beau- 
tiful eyes shone! — never did I see her happier. — And I 
came to know, as well, what the two lights meant. I came 
to know, I say. To know. Did you know ? Did any of 
you know ? 

The Girl's Father. To know? The two lights? . . . 

The Spinster. Yes. His in his cabin on the shore; 
hers in her turret on the hill. 

The Girl's Betrothed. This is impossible. This is 
shameful. 

The Spinster. It is true. You are shameful. I know 
that too. 

The Girl's Uncle. Peace, Constantia. 

The Spinster. When the ship pounded to pieces on the 
beach below, who braved the sea to save her ? Who lost 
his life in the attempt? You? No; you are alive; her 
urn is in your hand. 

The Youth's Mother. There is such a thing as 
memory. 

The Youth's Father. There is such a thing as grati- 
tude. 

The Spinster. Yes, there were two lights, and one was 
hers. I saw it at midnight many a time and oft. There 
are other lights than the stars. There are other vigils than 
mine. There are other thoughts than those of the cloister. 
I know it — I am sure of it. Have you known these things 
too ? But there are many things one cannot hope to know. 
Yes, that is true. 

The Girl's Uncle. Silence, Constantia ! You forget 
yourself. 

The Spinster. I do. And I forget other things. I am 
forgetting who stands here ready to receive her ashes. Not 



THE LOVE OF LOVE 47 

he, not he! Never! (She tries to snatch the golden urn 
from the hands of the Girl's Betrothed.) 

The Intendant. Time passes. The fires are out. The 
ashes are cold. Give me the urns. 

The Spinster (trying a second time). The golden one 
must be his. 

The Girl's Father. Never! (He moves toward the 
door with his urn.) 

The Spinster. You shall not be first. He shall be 
first. 

The Girl's Uncle. "By no means. We have always 
been first. 

The Girl's Father. And must be first now. 

The Intendant. Give me both. 

[He receives the two urns at the same time from the 
hands of the two Fathers and retires through the door- 
way.] 

The Captain of the Sailors (looking aloft). The wind 
is changing. 

The Spinster (clasping her hands over her streaming 
hair). And freshening. 

The Captain. It is blowing toward the sea. 

The Spinster. It is blowing toward our island. It is 
blowing toward the convent. 

The Captain. It will freshen still more. With every 
minute. 

The Spinster. It sweeps this hilltop. Already it is 
able to carry everything over the waves — sound, smoke, 
dust, ashes . . . 

[The Intendant appears in the doorway with an urn 
in each hand. The two families advance to receive them.] 



4 8 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Spinster {springing forward). His ashes ! And 
hers ! They should be mingled ! 

The Girl's Father. Never ! 

The Girl's Betrothed. Never such a degradation ! 

The Girl's Uncle. No more their ashes than their 
blood. 

The Youth's Father. Not less would be the dishonor 
for me than for you. 

The Spinster {snatching at the covers of the two urns). 
Yes, yes ; a thousand times yes ! Or there is no right, no 
justice, no love ! 

The Intendant. Back, woman ; back ! 

The Youth's Mother. There is no right. There is 
no justice. 

The Spinster. But do not tell me there is no love. 
There are many things one cannot know, but that . . . 
Poor children, poor children ! 

[The Spinster wrenches the two urns from the hands 
of the Intendant, and attempts to empty the contents of 
the earthen one into the golden one. A sudden gust of 
wind sweeps through the colonnade, and a bright beacon- 
light flares on the topmost tower of the convent. The 
Spinster, blinded by the blowing of her own hair, or by 
the swirling ashes, drops both urns with a crash upon the 
marble pavement, The wind sweeps the hilltop wildly 
and makes for the open sea.] 

The Youth's Mother. Woman, woman, what have 
you done ? 
The Girl's Father. What have you done? 
I'll.' Captain of i m Sailors. What have you dune ? 
The SPINSTER [laughing wildly). Ha, ha! The wind 



THE LOVE OF LOVE 



49 



blows straight to the island ! I left my lattice wide open ! 
{Seizing the Captain's arm.) Come, come; they will be 
waiting for me ! They know the place ! Let us return 1 
Let us return ! Let us return ! 

[The Spinster, followed by her Sailors, runs rapidly 
down the cypress-avenue. The launching of her ship is 
heard above the protests and lamentations of those who 
are left behind. The Intendant enters the Monument, 
and shuts the door.l 



AFTERGLOW 



AFTERGLOW. 

PERSONS. 

The Dramatic Poet. An Old Critic. 

His Niece. The Leading Lady (retired). 

The Ex-Manager of the Her Son. 

Court Theater. A Maid-servant. 

A domestic interior in the environs of one of the North- 
ern capitals. A bookcase full of pompous old volumes. 
A desk crammed with dusty and disordered papers. A 
floor-rug littered with journals from which excerpts have 
been made by hasty tearing or clipping. Present : the 
Maid-servant, who has an idle duster in one hand and a 
packet of manuscript in the other. 



The Maid-servant {considering the packet of manu- 
script). How to bring it to his notice — that is the ques- 
tion. Shall I lay it on his desk and say it was brought by 
hand, or should I have fallen back upon the mails and 
have had it left by the postman ? Shall it be the work of 
a lady of fortune and position, or that of a young poet 
whose only wish is to follow in the footsteps of the master ? 
Which pages will be most likely to please him ? Here is 



54 



THE PUPPET BOOTH 



the third act, for instance, where Pompilius leaves the 
Forum : 

I go, my fellow-countrymen, I go ; 

And proud the day for Rome when I return 

With a long train of captives . . . 

Yes, yes; that does very well. But there 's the fourth, 
too, where Alymon and Julia are on the point of separation : 

Plead not, my love, you scarce know what you ask. 
Since that dread day when Priscus' raging horde 
Drove back our bands . . . 

Ah, yes ; I have written as he would have written. He 
must like it — must praise it. But the question remains: 
how bring it to his notice ? 

[The street-door opens suddenly. Enter, briskly, the 
Poet's Niece, returned from a walk. She advances di- 
rectly toward the Maid-servant.] 

The Niece. Give it to me, Lisbeth; give me Walde- 
mar's letter. I saw the postman leaving our door just as 
I turned the corner. 

The Maid-servant. This is not Waldemar's letter — 
it is something a good deal more valuable than that, I 
hope! There is no Waldemar's letter — nothing was left 
but half a dozen more newspapers. O, those newspapers! 
— what are they all about? 

The Niecf:. You are teasing me, Lisbeth. This is one 
of Waldemar's days and he has never failed to remember 
me. Where have you out it? 



AFTERGLOW 55 

The Maid-servant {snatching a letter from the corner of 
the Poet's desk). Very well, then; this is one of his days, 
and he has remembered you. [She holds the letter behind 
her back) 

The Niece. Oh, Lisbeth, what were you meaning? 
To leave it upon my uncle's desk when you know that . . . ? 
What would he have said? — he who is so opposed to 
Waldemar (though he has never seen him), and to all of 
Waldemar's family. 

The Maid-servant. It has not been lying there two 
minutes ; it would not have lain there two minutes longer. 
Have no fear of your uncle ; he is still in the dark. But 
oh, these Wednesday mornings, when I must be first, come 
what may, to answer the postman's rap ! 

The Niece. Well, then, give it to me — come, come ! 
Give it to me, like the good old soul that you are. 

The Maid. Not so fast. If I do all this for you, there 
is something that you must do for me. 

The Niece. What ? 

The Maid. You must bring this [extending the manu- 
script) to your uncle's notice. You must get his attention 
for it ; you must arouse his interest in it. 

The Niece. What is it ? 

The Maid. My play. 

The Niece. Your play, Lisbeth ? You have written a 
play ? 

The Maid. I have. 

The Niece {taking the manuscript). It is a — a tragedy ? 

The Maid. A Roman tragedy. 

The Niece. In four — no, in five acts. 

The Maid. In five acts — five, of course. The first act 
takes place on the Capitol ; the second, in the ante-cham- 
ber of the Senate-house; the third, before the portals of — 



5 6 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Niece. Oh, Lisbeth, Lisbeth, you have succumbed 
at last! Twenty years in the atmosphere of tragedy — 
dusting it, shelving it, seeing it written, hearing it re- 
cited . . . 

The Maid. Never mind. Take it : help it. Written by 
a woman of rank and fortune . . . too modest to let her 
name be known . . . Oh, well, say anything you think 
will serve. 

The Niece. I will. And now — Waldemar's letter. I 
must know what he thought of that book, and whether the 
flowers were fresh when they reached him. 

The Maid. Take it. 

The Niece [reading the letter). " My darling Elsa : — I 
have but this moment received the sad intelligence — my 
poor, poor child."- — Why, Lisbeth, what does this mean ? 
What sad intelligence, pray ? " By the merest accident 
... be sure that I will come at the earliest moment . . . 
this sudden and terrible visitation . . . my mother's deep- 
est sympathies . . . she will accompany me . . . the ut- 
most haste . . . pray we may not be too late ..." Oh, 
Lisbeth, what can he mean ? I do not understand it at 
all. What dreadful thing has happened? Tell me, if you 
know. I beseech you ! 

The Maid. Nothing has happened, so far as I am 
aware. 

The Niece. Something has happened. Something must 
have happened. Where is my uncle ? 

The Maid. He is in his bedroom, shaving himself. 

The NlECE. "This sudden and terrible visitation," he 
says. And his mother is coming, he adds. Why should 
his mother be coming ? 

The Maid. Let her come, if she likes; she is a fine 
! i old lady, as 1 remember her. When 1 was young, 



AFTERGLOW 



57 



how I used to sit and blubber over her in the gallery ! 
There was the woman to play my Julia ! — 

Nay, should'st thou doubt me, snatch thy naked blade, 
And in this tender bosom plunge it deep ! . . . 

If he won't explain what the trouble is, perhaps she will 
The Niece. Lisbeth, you are deceiving me — you are 

holding something back. 

The Maid. I am holding nothing back — except my 

real name. I have deceived your uncle — steadily, for 

the past month, or more — but I have never deceived you. 

— See, he is coming. Control yourself; seem calm and 

placid — or he may think you are the author yourself. 

(She glides out.) 

[Enter the Dramatic Poet — a small, thin, sour and 
discontented man. He falls straightway upon the morn- 
ing's mail, regardless of his Niece, who hovers in the back- 
ground with her attention divided between her own letter 
and Lisbeth's manuscript] 

The Poet. Twenty years of indifference, twenty years 
of neglect ! — such unworthy, such shameful treatment for 
the greatest dramatic author of the age ! The theater 
closed against me ; my name all but forgotten ; my career 
ending dingily in a disregarded suburb ! — Well, what have 
these creatures found to say of me ? (He removes the 
wrapper from the first newspaper?) 

Yes, I have taken a decisive step, and I do not regret it. 
To languish for twenty years unmentioned, unheeded — 
it is too much. To find myself gliding toward the dark 
shadow without the faintest ray of illumination that comes 



58 THE PUPl'ET-BOOTH 

from the afterglow of fame — the thought was not to be en- 
dured. I must go sometime, yes ; but I could not bear to 
be snuffed out in silence. 

I consider that I have done no wrong in myself starting 
the report of my serious illness and imminent death. No 
great man can hope for full appreciation until his footfall 
is close upon the dark verge ; but when all appreciation is 
withheld — then extreme measures are justifiable. I will 
not pass away before my eyes are gladdened by one little 
belated flicker from the careless torch of fame. [Cursory 
examination of neiospaper.) 

Well ? well ? What do they say ? Into what obscure 
corner have they tucked it ? It is not here ; it is not there ! 
Can it be that no ... ? Since so little can be hoped for 
at the best, I will not degrade myself by further search. 
[He tramples the first journal under foot and opens a 
second.) 

First column, second column, third column ; first page, 
second page — Ah! . . . Three lines; three lines — no 
more. " We learn that Leopold Heiberg, a dramatic au- 
thor who once enjoyed a considerable repute, lies seriously 
ill at his house in Vorstadt. His recovery is doubtful." 
Ah! . . . A dramatic author ! A J And — " considera- 
ble repute"! Did not rival managers compete for my 
plays ? Did not ministers and councilors of state delight 
to honor me ? Did not royalty itself pin decorations on 
my breast? Did not the king . . . ? [He notes the pres- 
ence of his Niece.) Elsa, open the bookcase and bring 
me the first volume of the Collected Works. — And — "his 
recovery is doubtful." Is there one word of solicitude? 
Is there one expression of regret ? ( ) shame ! shame ! 

No, no; not that edition. Bring me the tall quarto. — 
There! What does the first page say? Whose name 



AFTERGLOW 59 

heads the list of patrons ? — Well, well ; are not the letters 
big enough to read ? 

Elsa. They are. They say: His Most Gracious Ma- 
jesty, Otto Frederick the Twelfth. 

The Poet. And what decoration did he bestow upon 
me? 

Elsa. I know, I know : the Order of the Golden Gadfly. 

The Poet. And when I next appeared before the pub- 
lic — when " Polymedon in Paphlagonia " first saw the foot- 
lights — tell me, girl, were there odes, were there laurel 
wreaths, were there toasts and banquets ? . . . 

Elsa. There were — so I am told. 

The Poet. So you are told? Open that drawer. Yes 

— that one. What do you bring me ? 
Elsa. A laurel-wreath. 

The Poet. Of silver. With purple ribbons. And gold 
lettering. How does it read ? 

Elsa. You know, uncle; I know; we both know. 
The Poet. Lay it on my desk. And replace the book. 

— What have you in your hand? What have you been 
keeping there all this time ? 

Elsa. A — a letter; a manuscript, I mean. 

The Poet. A letter; a manuscript; of course it is a 
manuscript. — Ah, I have been fearing this. I am not so 
ignorant of all that has been passing. Is it from Walde- 
mar Kronborg? 

Elsa. See, uncle ; a manuscript — truly. Left this 
morning by a lady — by a woman of fortune and posi- 
tion . . . 

The Poet. Never mind. I am thinking of his fortune 
and position — and family. Is the letter from him ? 

Elsa. Yes. 

The Poet. You must not see him ; you must not think 



6o THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

of him. I know the Kronborgs. I know Gertrude Kron- 
borg : never will I forgive her so long as I live. 

Elsa. Oh, uncle, what has happened? Something dread- 
ful, I know ! Tell me, tell me! 

The Poet. Yes ? When ? 

Elsa. But lately. I have just heard. 

The Poet. But lately? That was years ago. — Well, 
what is it ? 

Elsa. I do not know. — Oh, uncle, are you happy — are 
you well ? 

The Poet. Are you ? 

Elsa. Oh, uncle, you look so strange! — you behave 
so — so . . . 

The Poet. No, I am not well ; I am not happy. Why 
should I be? 

Elsa. They are coming, uncle — they are coming! 
Why are they coming ? 

The Poet. Coming ? Who ? 

Elsa. Waldemar and his mother. 

The Poet. Gertrude Kronborg coming ? I will not 
see her. And you shall not see her son. 

Elsa. But, uncle — 

The Poet. They are not coming ! — Put back that book, 
I say. (Elsa 7-eplaces the volume.) Good. {To himself.) 
Coming? coming? What possible reason can there be 
for that? {He opens a third journal.) Aha! what have 
we here? Three solid paragraphs — half a column, in 
short: as 1 live, a complete biography! "The eminent 
dramatic poet. . . . Born at. . . ." Yes, yesj quite cor- 
rect. " — in the year . . ." Perfectly, perfectly! "In 
his youth traveled extensively in Italy . . . was at Rome 
on the memorable occasion of the . . . Supposed to have 
drawn thence the inspiration which first moved him to- 



AFTERGLOW 61 

ward classic themes ... the friend of Thorwaldsen . . ." 
Admirable ! where did I lay those scissors ? " Old play- 
goers will recall his repeated triumphs on the stage of 
our own Theater Royal." — But what is this? "The un- 
fortunate series of events which led to his withdrawal from 
public view . . . mistaken attitude toward the manage- 
ment . . . ill-advised stand against the best critical opin- 
ion . . . not altogether mindful of the changes then tak- 
ing place in the public taste . . ." What, what ! Some 
enemy has written this ! But let me go on calmly. " His 
ungallant and inexplicable treatment of that sterling artist 
and general favorite, Gertrude Kronborg . . ." No, no ; 
this is all wrong ; it is miserably unjust. It shall have no 
place in my album — never! (He throws down his scissors 
and pushes away his paste-pot.) This is not true. No; 
they combined against me ; they drove me from the stage ; 
they ruined my career — those Westergaards, those Grundt- 
vigs! And she at the head of them! — she whom I so 
loved and trusted, she whom I would so gladly have 
made my wife. But let me not think of these things. 

One paragraph more Some general reflections and 
considerations — all in the past tense: was — had been — 
would have been ; did — did not — could not. What ! 
will they bury me before I am dead ! There are laurels 
here, indeed, but they are tied with crape and spattered 
by the mud of slander. 

One journal still : will it contain any corrective for all 
the injustice of the last ? Oh, heavens, what is this ? — 
" the death, after a painful illness ... at one time promi- 
nent among writers for the stage . . . author of ' Cassan- 
dra,' etc. . . . the funeral" — oh, powers above! — "the 
funeral, we understand, will take place on the coming Wed- 
nesday at Vorstadt, his late residence ..." Heaven 



62 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

and earth ! they will bury me before I am dead, after all ! 
Wednesday, Wednesday ? — why that is to-day ! And Ger- 
trude Kronborg is coming ! — she has read these lines, and 
she is coming to see me put into my grave ! 

Els A [whose attention is drawn by his signs of surprise 
and dismay). Uncle, uncle, what dreadful thing are you 
keeping from me ? Why have all these newspapers come, 
and what intelligence are you cutting out of them to pre- 
vent my learning it ? What loss, what death, what mis- 
fortune . . . ? 

The Poet. None, my child, none. You — you spoke 
of a manuscript . . . 

Elsa. Do you wish to see it now ? 

The Poet. Yes. I must take my thought away from 
such . . . You say she is coming ? 

Elsa. I said he was coming. He may bring her with 
him. 

The Poet. All that must be avoided. Yes, I will look 
at it. A woman of fortune and position, I believe you said ? 

Elsa. Yes ; one who has read all your works and long 
admired them ; one who in her young days wept over 
them at the play-house, and who has ever since hoped to 
produce something worthy of your approval. 

The Poet. Let me look at it. Ah — um! "Act Four; 
the portico of the temple of Juno," — a very proper place; 
I feel quite at home there. " Lucilius addressing the Ro- 
man cohorts) " — a worthy body of men : — 

Then let the doom of Labicum be scaled! 
Our conquering blades . . . um — um . . . 

to force a dauntless way 

Till Nelo's helm be clefl . . . 



AFTERGLOW 65 

This may well repay examination. One faithful worship- 
per remains at the true fane. — I will take it to my room. 
(To Lisbeth, who enters.) You may put this place in or- 
der and see that no one disturbs my quiet.— To come to 
me to-day for advice and approbation — this is the choic- 
est flower of fame ! — I may still number myself among the 
living, I think ! (He goes out.) 

Elsa (to Lisbeth). Your fate is in his hands. Would 
that mine (regarding Waldemar's letter) were in his I 

[Lisbeth quickly brings the disordered room to rights, — 
desk, bookcase, rug. A knock at the street-door. Enter 
the Leading Lady and her Son — both dressed in black.] 

Lisbeth (with a deference that approaches solemnity). 
Ah, it is Madame Kronborg. And Mr. Waldemar. Be 
seated, pray. I will let my master know at once that you 
are here. But he is very busy with an important matter 
that he has just taken up, and I doubt if he can see you 
immediately. Seat yourselves, however. 

[Lisbeth passes out. The new-comers take chairs and 
look about the room with a mournful interest.] 

The Leading Lady. Busy — I can well believe it: the 
last sad rites. 

Waldemar. Who can have charged himself with them ? 
" Her master," she said. 

The Leading Lady. I think there was a brother; — 
but it is a long time back to those old, old days. Poor 
Leopold ! — it is twenty years since last I saw him. 

Waldemar. And I have never seen him. But I have 
felt him. 



64 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Leading Lady. Hush, Waldemar. You must not 
say that here. 

Waldemar. I had lost all hope of ever entering this 
house. But here I am — because no one along the road 
could direct us to the proper church. 

The Leading Lady. Poor Leopold ! — and there was 
the day when all the streets were thronged to see him 
pass ! ( They lapse into a decorous and mournful silence.) 

[Another knock at the street-door. Two elderly men, 
also in black, are admitted by Lisbeth. Inasmuch as 
they advance direct toward the Leading Lady, Lisbeth 
yields them to her and withdraws. But they speak no 
word; they shake her hand and then dejectedly seat them- 
selves close to each other on the opposite side of the 
room. — A long pause.] 

The Leading Lady. It was you, then, who followed 
behind us. I am so glad that you could come, Kaspar. 

The Ex-Manager. We felt sure that your guidance 
would bring us to the right place. 

The Critic. I had no notion where he lived. It must 
be twenty years since last we saw him. And nearly ten 
since we have seen one another. 

The Leading Lady. Yes ; I retired ten years ago this 
spring. 

The Critic. We should all have remained friends. 

The Ex-Manager. He made it difficult. 

The Leading Lady. I am afraid that is true. 

The Ex-Manager. He questioned my judgment. Yet 
I still think that my hand was firmer on the public pulse 
than his was. 

The Critic. And I — [questioned his methods; — truly 



AFTERGLOW 65 

to my own regret. Times were changing; he would not 
see it. 

The Leading Lady. And he — he questioned my mo- 
tives. Yet his success was as dear to me as to himself. 
Through twenty rehearsals we struggled, with hitches and 
quarrels and heartburnings; and at last that dreadful 
day . . . 

The Ex-Manager. We gave him up; we put on another 
play. No one was sorrier than I ; but nothing else could 
be done. 

The Critic. Then he saw a cabal against him. He 
refused any concession, rejected every compromise. . . . 
But it is all over now. 

The Ex- Manager. Yes, it is all over now. — He was a 
great man in his day. Are we the only ones to honor 
him? 

The Leading Lady. Do not ask that. — What do I see 
lying there on his desk close beside you ? A wreath ? 

The Ex- Manager. A wreath, yes. A wreath of tar- 
nished silver, with a faded ribbon. The date is here — 
you should remember it; it was you who placed this 
wreath upon his brow. 

The Leading Lady. And I shall place it upon his coffin. 
Can they have waited for my coming to have that done ? 

[The door opens. They lapse into a decorous silence. 
Elsa enters. Waldemar hastens across to her and takes 
her hand.] 

Waldemar. My poor, poor Elsa ! This is a sad day 
for you. 

Elsa. Waldemar, you frighten me ! What did your 
letter mean ? Why are you dressed throughout in black ? 



66 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

And who are all these solemn people seated round the 
room? 

Waldemar. The lady, Elsa, is my mother. The stout 
gentleman is Kaspar Westergaard, who was once manager 
of the Court Theater. The thin one is Grundtvig, the 
great Grundtvig, who wrote for many years upon the stage. 
They have come here to honor your uncle. 

Elsa. Then let me greet them. I trust he will forgive 
them. 

Waldemar. I trust he has forgiven them ! 

Elsa. Do not be so sure. That terrible quarrel! — I 
know it all by heart ; I have lived upon it for years. Still, 
if he will but see them, but speak to them . . . 

Waldemar. Child, what do you mean ? They have 
come to honor your uncle's memory — to follow his body 
to the tomb. 

Elsa. To the tomb ? To follow him to the tomb ? What 
are you saying ? My uncle is not dead ! 

Waldemar. Not dead ? 

Elsa. By no means. He is alive and well, and in the 
next room. 

Waldemar. Alive and well ! But we read in the paper 
that . . . Then, let me tell my mother — she has felt it 
all so keenly. 

Elsa. By all means. — But wait. Waldemar. I see a 
chance for reconciliation here. Be silent for a while. 
Waldemar; you have your interests here, too. 

[They scat themselves side by side; all five preserve the 
deepest silence. The Poet enters, deep in Lisbeth's 
manuscript.] 

The Poet [unconscious of any presence). ¥es, yes, this is 
distinctly promising; and it is written, too, in a firm, clear 



AFTERGLOW 67 

hand. One may go far when fairly started upon the right 
track. I shall gladly give audience to this extremely clever 
and appreciative woman. A few suggestions, a few cor- 
rections . . . 

[He starts suddenly at sight of a roomful of strangers. 
The three elder ones rise and advance toward him with 
faces full of deep commiseration.] 

The Leading Lady. Your poor, poor brother! 

The Ex-Manager. We heard it, by the merest chance, 
only this morning. 

The Critic. And have come in all haste ; we trust we 
are not too late. 

[The Poet, coming to himself and to the situation, 
bows with an air of shocked solemnity.] 

The Leading Lady. I am Gertrude Kronborg. I cre- 
ated twenty of his heroines. And this is Kaspar Wester- 
gaard — 

The Ex-Manager. — who staged twenty of his plays. 
And this is Andreas Grundtvig — 

The Critic. — who carried their fame as far as his poor 
pen would allow. 

[The Poet looks from one to another out of the midst 
of a maze of conflicting emotions.] 

The Leading Lady. We were all old friends of his. 
The Ex-Manager. We are come to wipe out an unfor- 
tunate past. 

The Critic. And to do honor to his worthy memory. 

[The Poet bows gravely and turns away his face.] 



68 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Leading Lady. That hapless day ! — a thousand 
times I 've wished its wretched work undone. I knew my 
lines ; I knew them word for word . . . 

The Ex- Manager. I set the stage with scenes all new 
throughout. They went for nothing . . . 

The Critic. I should have strained a point, I think, to 
take the friendliest view . . . 

The Leading Lady. I knew my lines, I say. I know 
them yet : 

Chide not, my sire, nor think my duty fails 
If from this shelt'ring roof I now depart. 
The road divides. I have a father, yes ; 
But have I not a lover too . . . ? 

The Ex-Manager {taking up the part of the Roman 
father). 

. . . prate not, O girl ! My ears are deaf 

To one who 'd scant her filial duty thus. 

No, not for Juno's self . . . Juno's self. . . . 

But twenty years have gone; I can recall the words no 
longer. 

The Poet {breaking in). 

No, not for Juno's self would I make peace 
Where hate has held this immemorial sway. 
Like all the past, so all the future too ! 

The Critic. The precise words! I should have used 
them in nay review, I am sure. 

The Poet {proceeding in the person of the Roman lover, 
while Waldemar and Elsa look on and listen with a fas- 
cinated interest). 



AFTERGLOW 69 

And yet, proud Roman, if perchance thou think'st 
To part for aye two loving hearts like ours, 
Know we have ways to 'scape thy tyranny 
And take good heed lest . . . 

Elsa, bring me the last volume of the Collected Works. 

[He opens the book with quick decision and places it 
in the Ex-Manager's hand ; the three parts are then car- 
ried on to the satisfaction of the Critic, the eager interest 
of Waldemar and Elsa, and the intense delight of Lis- 
beth, who (poised in the doorway) finds herself fully in 
her element at last.] 

The Poet {after many cues have been taken and many 
sounding titles recited). 

And now, stern father, hear my latest word : 
Your child and I have made a solemn vow 
That naught below the courses of the stars 
Shall separate. . . . 

The Ex-Manager. Man, who are you ? — you, who 
know his writings word for word — you, whose presence is 
a living monument to his memory ! Why does your voice 
tremble? Why do your eyes shine with such a light? 
You might almost be Leopold Heiberg's self! 

The Poet. I am Leopold Heiberg's self. You have 
been brought here by a piece of folly all my own, but I 
am glad you came. The three whom I have so long held 
in my memory for enemies turn out to be my truest 
friends — and all the friends I have. 

The Leading Lady. Your hand, Leopold ! 

The Poet. The things that might have been, Gertrude ! 



7 o 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Leading Lady. We will not think of the things 
that might have been. We will think (Waldemar and 
Elsa advance) of the things that are to be. 

Waldemar (as the Poet hesitates). You have spoken 
for us in your own verses. 

The Critic. They are ones I should have cited as very 
true and just. 

The Ex-Manager. Will you refuse your own tribute to 
your own lines ? 

The Leading Lady. Come here, Elsa. For a month 
past I have known of my son's hopes and wished that 
they might soon be realized. 

The Poet. I yield. But that tribute is not the sole one. 
I hold here a tragedy written by a woman of fortune and 
position who has asked my judgment . . . Who is this 
author, Elsa ? You have not yet told me her name. 

Elsa (pointing to Lisbeth in. the doorway). There she 
stands. 

The Poet„ What ! Lisbeth ! Is this the woman of 
fortune and position ? 

Lisbeth [advancing). Yes. My position is that of your 
maid. My fortune is to have served you for twenty years, 
and I wish no better for twenty more. 

The Critic. Bravo ! Our Leopold is another Moham- 
med : he finds his chief disciple in his own household. 

Waldemar (holding Elsa's hand). Mohammed found 
more than a disciple ! 

The Ex-Manager. Bui the play! it shall be read. 
Whatever its fate, I say this: it has opened for its author 
a tree path to every theater in town. 

The Poet (holding Gertrude KLronborg's hand). 
More has opened for me than that : the way back into the 
hearts of three good friends. 



THE SHIP COMES IN. 



THE SHIP COMES IN. 



PERSONS. 

The Lord of the Manor. A Fishergirl, his grand- 

His Steward. daughter. 

His Librarian. An Old Fishwife. 

A Serving-maid. A Youth, her grandson. 

An Old Fisherman. Other Fisherfolk. 

A neglected terrace in front of a dilapidated chateau. 
The chateau is at the estuary of a river, and its terrace 
commands a wide view of a watery land : low-lying shores 
help to define an indefinite horizon, and many dim sails flit 
by without pausing and without approaching. Level with 
the rugged old balustrade rise the masts and chimneys of a 
fishing-village, and through the middle of the terrace a 
seamed and salt-stained old stairway leads to the beach 
below. The time is sunset, and a pinkish glow touches 
alike the sky, the sea, and the distant sails. There is a 
light breeze. 

At one corner of the terrace the Lord of the Manor 
lounges on a shabby garden-seat which is set between two 
oleanders in tubs of faded green. In attendance upon him 
are his Steward and his Librarian. 



74 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Lord of the Manor {yawning and stretching). 
Yes, one day and one night will be enough — as I fore- 
judged. 

The Librarian. Your stay is short, my lord. 

The Lord of the Manor. It will be long enough to 
serve my purpose. 

The Steward. We should be glad to hold you here a 
second day, my lord. 

The Lord of the Manor. I leave to-morrow forenoon ; 
I will hear your reports and receive your payments this 
evening. This monotony wears upon me past all endur- 
ance : the same sea ; the same sky ; the same people — not 
a single one seeming to have an interest or a hope ; even 
the same girl standing out there on the end of the pier. 
She has stood there since noon, I think. 

The Librarian. I have noticed her several times. It is 
Genevieve. 

The Lord of the Manor. But wait — s/ic- may have 
an interest or a hope. Ah, thank you, Genevieve. For 
she shades her eyes as she looks out toward the horizon ; 
what is she expecting ? And now she seems to be wring- 
ing her hands; what has gone amiss ? 

The Steward. She is waiting for the boat. We are all 
waiting for the boat. The whole town is waiting for the 
boat. 

The Lord of the Manor. Ah ! Is it late ? I know no- 
thing, you understand, during one of my afternoon naps. 

The Steward. It usually arrives at midday. 

The Lord of the Manor. Daily ? 

The Librarian. Daily! Ah, heavens I Fortnightly — 
no oftener than that. 

The Lord OF THE Manor. Its coming, then, is an 
event ? 



THE SHIP COMES IN 75 

The Steward. Its coming means everything for m — 
for us, for this little community. 

The Librarian. It is our sole connection with the out- 
side world — that world so vast and all unseen. 

The Lord of the Manor. Ah, indeed ? — There ! I 
am sure she is wringing her hands once more ; — what a 
sadly awkward outline she makes ! Who is the old man 
that goes stumbling out toward her so clumsily ? 

The Librarian. He is her grandfather. 

The Lord of the Manor. He does not seem to mind 
her. 

The Steward. He has too many cares. It is he, in 
effect, who has charge of our village stores. His fore- 
thought means meat, drink, light, heat, medicine for all 
these hundred souls. 

The Librarian. Yet all his care would go for little 
should the boat but fail us. 

The Lord of the Manor. I see. — And who is the old 
woman crooning to herself at the bottom of my stairway ? 

The Steward. She is the girl's great-aunt ; she is Gene- 
vieve's great-aunt. 

The Lord of the Manor. I remember; I think I saw 
her when I was here seven years ago. 

The Librarian. She has been here seventy. 

The Lord of the Manor. And what will the boat 
bring to her ? The doctor, perhaps — for she is coughing, 
I notice. 

The Steward. It will bring her the priest and his mass. 
To-morrow is one of his Sundays. 

The Lord of the Manor. I understand; she is a de- 
votee. — And who is the youth at her side ? He has a 
bundle between his feet, I judge. 

The Librarian. He is her grandson. He expects to 



7 6 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

leave us upon the return of the boat ; it is his first venture 
into the world. 

The Lord of the Manor. Much depends, then, upon 
the boat and its master ? Everyone has expectations, it 
seems, — except myself. 

The Librarian. I have mine, I assure you. 

The Steward (to himself). And I mine. Whose hopes 
are greater, I wonder — whose needs more pressing ? 

The Librarian. The boat must come ; it is a matter of 
the greatest importance to me. 

The Steward (to himself). The boat must come; it is a 
matter of life and death for me. 

The Lord of the Manor. But there are other boats; 
I see a score upon the horizon now. 

The Librarian. They are always upon the horizon, — 
as the stars are always in the sky. They never come 
nearer. 

The Lord of the Manor. But we have our own boats 
here; there are a dozen this moment at my feet. 

The Steward. They are old and slow and clumsy, and 
too deep of draught for many of these sandy shallows. 
Some of them are leaky, and one or two are rotten. They 
do not go far. This is but a poor little place. You will 
not forget that, my lord ? 

The Lord of the Manor. And the next beyond is like 
it ? And the next ? And the next still ? 

The Steward. Do not believe them better. 

The Lord of the Manor. Ami from fifty such I draw 
my living. — Your accounts are prepared ? Your payments 
will be made to-night ? . . . 

The Steward. Your hopes will lie moderate, my lord ? 

The LORD OF iim: Manor. 1 have not been unindul- 
gent. This evening shall find me just, — neither more nor 
less. 



THE SHIP COMES IN 



77 



[A Serving-maid advances along the terrace, bearing a 
tray with refreshment.] 

The Lord of the Manor. Ah, this is attentive — very. 
Whom have I to thank ? 

The Maid. The housekeeper sends me with it. 

The Lord of the Manor. Let me thank her for send- 
ing . . . you with it. Or shall I blame her for not sending 
. . . you with it before ? 

The Steward [with considerable self-consciousness). Pour, 
girl. No simpering. 

The Lord of the Manor. Nay, let her simper. She 
simpers very prettily, I 'm sure. Why was n't she allowed 
to do her simpering before ? — Ah, very refreshing, very 
grateful, I 'm sure — your wine, I mean. 

The Librarian. I am hoping to be able soon to offer 
your lordship something much more grateful than this. 

The Lord of the Manor. Is it possible ? 

The Librarian. Might I venture to look for your lord- 
ship's acceptance of the dedication of my new work ? It 
is nearing completion. 

The Lord of the Manor. What work is this ? 

The Librarian. You surely remember ; you have been 
advised of its progress from time to time. I am on the 
fifth and last volume, and the few books and pamphlets I 
am looking for to-day will help me to a quick completion 
Then " The Circumnavigation of the Globe " will be ready 
for your consideration. 

The Lord of the Manor. Ah, the Circumnavigation of 
the . . . to be sure ! This, then, is how you have been 
spending the last seven years — you have been circum- 
navigating the globe. And who, in the meantime, has 
been keeping the worms and the sea-air out of my poor 
old books ? 



78 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Librarian. They have not suffered. In all that 
time, I — I — I have not once left this place. 

The Lord of the Manor. Here, then, is what you ex- 
pect by the boat — more books to rot and to decay. (To 
the Steward.) And what do you expect ? 

The Steward (in sudden alarm). I, sir ? I expect noth- 
ing, I assure you. I have everything that I should have, 
everything that — that I could hope to have. 

The Lord of the Manor. So much the better — for 
you, for me, for everybody. — And this girl who leans sea- 
ward over the balustrade ? Ninette, Niniche, whatever 
they call you . . . What do you expect from across the 
water ? 

The Maid (picking up her tray). A mere trifle, sir; a 
trinket, a remembrancer. One has been promised me. 

The Lord of the Manor. Do you see it coming ? 

The Maid (shading her eyes). I think I do, sir. I see a 
new sail. It is coming this way. It is the only one com- 
ing this way. It is our sail ; it is our boat, I am sure. 

The Librarian. You are right. It is coming! It is 
coming ! 

The Steward (in an undertone of great relief). At last ! 
At last ! (He starts upon a quick descent of the stairway, 
out checks himself and returns with an assumption of indif- 
ference.) 

The Lord of the Manor. Ah, you expect something, 
after all. What is it ? 

The Steward. You are wrong, quite wrong, indeed. I 
look for nothing — for nothing at all. 

| The Maid leans over the balustrade and signals the 
appearance of the sail t«> the Fisherfolk below. They 
crowd slowly up the stairway for the sake of a wider out- 



THE SHIP COMES IN 79 

look. The Old Fisherman and his Granddaughter 
leave the pier and climb upward with the rest.] 

The Steward. Come, come, good people; you press too 
closely. Down, down, if you please, to your proper level. 

The Lord of the Manor. Do not be too strict; allow 
them the trifling liberty. This is an event of some impor- 
tance. It means much to every one — except to me. 

The Steward. And to me. 

The Lord of the Manor. To every one, except to me. 

The Librarian. But what is life to him who has every- 
thing and looks forward to nothing ? 

The Lord of the Manor. Very true. 

The Old Fisherman {upon the topmost step). It is only 
a small sail, my lord, and it is only a little boat; but it 
means everything to us. 

The Lord of the Manor. Then may the breeze not fail. 

The Old Fisherman. It means bread for our tables, 
oil for our lighthouse . . . 

The Old Fishwife {coughing). The comfort of religion 
for our souls . . . 

The Fishergirl {with her head upon the Fishwife's 
shoulder). Oh, may the priest but come, whatever else be 
lacking ! Let him but bring the priest, whatever else 
be left behind! 

The Old Fisherman. We have waited all day. The 
twilight is now upon us. 

The Maid. Cheer up, cheer up! It is Gilbert's own 
boat. He will soon be here. Already I feel that neck- 
lace round my throat. 

[The Fishergirl raises her head suddenly, and clum- 
sily makes as if to cross over to the Serving-maid.] 



80 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Lord of the Manor. How awkward that girl is 
— how badly she handles herself! How clumsily she 
picked her way back along the pier ! — 1 could not but 
notice. 

The Steward. Do not ask too much from these peas- 
ants. You will find few of them so trim and neat as my 
niece Ninette. 

The Old Fisherman. Yes, that is Gilbert's boat. 

The Youth. And I am to leave here with him to-night. 

The Librarian. But is he following his usual course ? 

The Old Fisherman. There is little choice ; the breeze 
is light. 

The Librarian. He is not sailing as I should sail. He 
has not set his canvas as I should set it. 

The Old Fisherman. The boat will touch at the pier 
within ten minutes. 

The Librarian. He has never come like this before. 
I cannot believe it is his hand that is at the rudder. 

The Steward {taking the Librarian aside). Is Gilbert 
an honest man ? 

The Librarian. How — honest? 

The Steward. Is he an honest man ? 

The Librarian. You know him as well as I do. He 
is honest enough — with men: as honest as I am — as 
honest as you are. With women — that is a different 
affair. 

The Steward. With women — that does not matter. 
Would you trust him with a bag of gold ? 

The Librarian. I dare say; I dare say. 

The Steward. Tell me, tell me ! Much depends on 
that ; everything depends on that. 

The Librarian. I have trusted him with my books. 

The Steward. Ah . . . those books! 



THE SHIP COMES IN 8l 

The Fishergirl {to the Fishwife, upon whose shoulder 
she still hides her face). Do you see him? Is he at the 
helm ? Is the priest with him ? 

The Fishwife. My eyes are too old for the twilight. I 
only see that the pink of the sail has turned to gray. 

The Youth. I see no one — as yet. 

The Fishergirl. He is in the cabin. The priest is in 
the cabin too. They are sitting there together. 

The Old Fisherman. No ; the cabin will be crowded 
with our stores. We shall have light for our signal ; we 
shall have bacon for to-morrow's dinner. 

The Librarian. He is below. He is searching out my 
books. 

The Maid. Be it above or below, so that he brings me 
my necklace. 

The Steward {to himself). Be he where he may, so 
that my gold reaches me within the hour. Or how shall 
I stop the gap and save myself from ruin ? 

The Fishergirl {to herself). He is aboard — it must 
be so. Another fortnight's waiting would be my death. 

[The boat approaches quietly through the dusk, and 
heads for the beach with little heed to the pier. All — 
save the Lord of the Manor — swarm down to meet it. — 
There is a flitting of busy figures through the falling night, 
and presently a great chorus of discordant cries.] 

The Librarian {appearing at the top of the stairway). It 
is shameful ; I am in a rage ! That the circumnavigation 
of the globe should be checked by a single wretched 
sailor ! 

The Lord of the Manor. Your books are not aboard ? 

The Librarian. Nothing is aboard ; nobody is aboard ! 



82 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Lord of the Manor. But really, now . . . Your 
thought is too — too self-centered. 

The Librarian. Nothing, I say! Nothing; nobody! 

The Maid (on a lower step). My necklace ! Where is 
my necklace ? 

The Fishergirl {beside her). What do you say? 

The Maid. My necklace ! He promised to bring me 
one. 

The Fishergirl. One from whom? 

The Maid. From himself — his own gift. 

The Fishergirl. His ? Gilbert's ? 

The Maid. Ay, to be sure. 

[The Fishergirl staggers blindly down the steps and 
disappears in the darkness.] 

The Steward {climbing up, pak as a ghost). Nobody 
aboard! Nothing aboard! Nothing absolutely — save a 
broken oar ! ( To the Serving-maid.) He and his boat — 
they have betrayed you, they have betrayed me, they have 
betrayed everybody ! 

The Lord of the Manor. What does this mean? Let 
lights be brought. 

The Old Fisherman {half-way up the steps). There is 
hardly a candle in the place. The lighthouse itself will be 
dark to-night. 

The Old Fishwife (beside him). We have not even 
candles for a mass. We have only the stars. 

The Youth (flinging aside his bundle). I am left here 
still; I shall never get away — I shall never know the 
world. 

[The last of the Fisherfolk pass slowly down the steps 
and disperse through the village.] 



-, 



THE SHIP COMES IN 83 

The Lord of the Manor {to the Steward). Let lights 
be brought, I say. 

The Steward. Lights, my lord ? You have heard ; — 
there are none. 

The Lord of the Manor. No lights! Am I to go 
candleless to supper ? 

The Steward. Supper, my lord ? You understand ; — 
there is none. 

The Lord of the Manor. No supper! Am I to go 
supperless to bed ? 

The Steward. To bed, my lord ? 

The Lord of the Manor. Ay, to bed. Do not say 
there is no bed ! Am I to go bedless to ... ? 

The Steward [in deep abasement). No, my lord. Ni- 
nette . . . 

The Lord of the Manor. That is not what I meant. 
I think I meant nothing at all, — I went too far. Send 
the wretched girl away. 

The Steward. You may go, Ninette. ( The girl lin- 
gers.) 

The Lord of the Manor. And this is your steward- 
ship ! The man who professes himself without a care, an 
interest, an expectation, leaves me to go to bed hungry 
and in the dark! What more have I to learn, I 
wonder ? 

The Steward. My lord, there will be a candle or two; 
not enough to fill a luster, but still enough to eat supper 
by. You shall have my candle. 

The Lord of the Manor. Merci. 

The Steward. And there will be a supper ; not such as 
you are accustomed to, but enough to go to bed on. You 
shall have my supper. 

The Lord of the Manor. Grand' merci. 



84 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Steward. And there will be a bed; not such as 
you are entitled to, but . . . 

The Lord of the Manor. Tell her to go, I say ! Tell 
the wretched thing to go. 

The Steward [in utter despair). Go, Ninette. {The 
girl leaves.) Grant me the least indulgence, my lord. 
Things shall be better to-morrow. 

The Lord of the Manor. To-morrow I shall go. 
Come ; bring your books, your papers, your moneys. Re- 
deem yourself by a fair account and a full payment. 
Come. (He retires within the chateau.) 

[Dark, moonless night. After an interval, the sail of 
the empty boat is raised, and the Steward puts forth 
alone.] 

The Steward {throwing a pistol, with a splash, into the 
water). Second thoughts are best. After all, I have left 
him something — I have left him a roof over his head ! 

[As the Steward rounds the end of the pier, a second 
splash is heard : the Fishergirl has flung herself into the 
sea. J 






AT SAINT JUDAS'S. 



AT SAINT JUDAS'S. 

al fondo che divora 

Lucifero con Giuda 

Inferno, XXXI. 

in the abyss which swallows up 

Judas with Lucifer 

Longfellow's Tr. 

PERSONS. 

The Bridegroom. A Procession of priests and 

The Best Man. acolytes. 

The Sacristan. Eight Painted Windows. 



The sacristy of the church of St. Judas. Time : ten 
minutes before noon. A pealing of bells is heard. 

The sacristy is a great octagonal room of sculptured 
stone; its groined vaulting is upheld by one central col- 
umn which is wreathed from base to capital with a band 
of pale carven flowers, and its eight windows — broad and 
high, trefoiled and quatrefoiled — flood both floor and roof 
with an endless dapple and ripple of variegated light. Un- 
der one of these windows an open door leads into the 
church. Through this doorway one sees the chancel 
banked with flowers ; and above the decorous murmur of 
a thousand tongues one hears the tones of the organ and 
the voices of the choir-boys. 

Present in the sacristy : the Bridegroom and his Best 
87 



88 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

Man. Both are in full uniform; each wears white gloves 
and carries a sword. 



The Bridegroom {gaily). In ten minutes — ten minutes 
more ! 

The Best Man {with constraint). In ten minutes — as 
you say. 

The Bridegroom [fastening his glove). Is that a long 
time, or a short time ? A long time, I think. 

The Best Man. A short time. But much may happen 
within a short time, much may happen in ten minutes. 

The Bridegroom. How soberly said ! Are you as jo- 
vial as one's closest friend should be ? 

The Best Man. Perhaps not. This day — it means so 
much for me. 

The Bridegroom [unfastening his glove). As much as 
it means for me ? 

The Best Man. As much, yes. Quite as much. Per- 
haps more. 

The Bridegroom. Not more. For it means everything 
in the world for me. 

The Best Man. It means everything in the world for 
me. 

The Bridegroom. Now that voice vibrates with such 
a degree of interest as I have felt this day demanded! 
Now I begin to recognize you! — the first time for a 
month. 

The Best Man. I am the same. I am unaltered. 

The Bridegroom [re fastening his glove). No, no : you 
have never been quite the same since I told you — since 
you heard of the great change in store for me. 

The BEST Man. How did you tell me? In your sleep 



AT SAINT JUDAS'S 89 

— your own pillow close to mine. I felt myself an eaves- 
dropper; I felt that I had betrayed your confidence. 

The Bridegroom. Not betrayed; only anticipated. 
You would have known within a day. You have known 
everything else. You have shared my thoughts, my ideas, 
my secrets, my ambitions. We have eaten together; we 
have slept together ; we have fought side by side. 
We are of the same age, the same height — my eyes have 
always been able to look level into yours. We are of the 
same bulk as well ; — who shall say that even at the pres- 
ent moment I am not wearing your coat and you mine ? 

The Best Man. That has happened more than once. 

The Bridegroom. You have saved my life; I have 
saved yours. Have we not pledged an unbreaking friend- 
ship? 

The Best Man. We have. 



[The First of the Eight Windows comes to life ; there 
is a flux of color and of outline among its mullioned lights. 
Gradually two figures among its ranks of churchly war- 
riors become strangely secularized ; they raise their crossed 
swords on high, while their left hands meet in a clasp of 
friendship. The colors upon the pavement shift in corre- 
spondence, and from the church, or from spaces far above 
and beyond it, there come the tones of the Ecce, quam bo- 
num.\ 

The Bridegroom. But for you my bones, hacked by 
African sabers, might now be bleaching upon the desert 
sands. 

The Best Man. But for you my own, gnawed byname- 
less fishes, might now be lying at the bottom of the sea. 



go THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Bridegroom. Your arm, sweeping through that 
burning air, saved me for to-day. 

The Best Man. Yours, cleaving through those angry 
waters, saved me for — for — [to himself) for — what ? 

The Bridegroom. Yes, you have saved me for to-day. 
A moment more, and I shall stand where I have long 
hoped to stand, and shall take the vow that so long has 
been ready on my lips. At last all obstacles are brushed 
aside — at last the way stands clear. Those obstacles — 
you know my combat with them as well as I myself. At 
every step, on every hand, this mysterious opposition, this 
determined and unceasing enmity. From what source 
could it come ? From what motive ? What enemy have 
I ? The worst should stay his hand at such a time as this. 

The Best Man [vaguely). True — true. 

The Bridegroom. I pass over the attempt to embarrass 
my fortune ; and I will say nothing of the efforts made to 
transfer me to another regiment and to have me sent back 
to the wars. Nor will I dwell upon the conspiracy dis- 
closed by the repeated advice from so many friends to 
forego this marriage. For few of these advisers were close 
enough to me to have the right to speak ; fewer still had 
any definite reason to tender ; and all were but too plainly 
moved — some of them unconsciously, perhaps — by one 
hidden yet dexterous hand. Let all that pass. How did 
the real attack begin ? What was the first thing to be in- 
sinuated ? 

The Best Man (as before). Yes, I remember. 

[The Second of the Eight Windows is endowed with 
a moving consciousness. Ten honorable Knights rise in a 
semicircle and look down, with an open apprehension in 
their pure young eyes, upon the pair beneath. An imlig- 



AT SAINT JUDAS'S 9 I 

nant diapason rolls in from the organ, and distant voices 
are heard to chant the In quo corriget?\ 

The Bridegroom. A shameful whisper, creeping hither 
and thither, named me a cheat, a trickster, a gamester. I 
have played — yes; it is the privilege of my order, of my 
profession. But I have never played otherwise than hon- 
orably. 

The Best Man. Never otherwise than honorably. 

The Bridegroom. A hundred tongues came to my de- 
fense. Only one was silent — yours. I can never thank 
you enough for that. Your perfect confidence would not 
deign . . . Your certainty of my innocence made it 
seem . . . 

The Best Man. Unnecessary to defend. 

[The Knights look into one another's eyes and shake 
their heads and turn away their faces.] 

The Bridegroom. I strangled this slanderous report — 
though she indeed had never doubted me ; and I struck 
down the only man who dared repeat it openly. But 
what came next ? After defending my honor as an offi- 
cer, I was compelled to defend my honor as a suitor. 

[The Third Window sets itself in motion. A band of 
chaste young Damsels brush forward through ranks of tall 
and rigid lilies and curve their lustrous palms before their 
ears to hear the coming words of ill-report. Voices (not 
theirs) intone the words of the Noli amulari.] 

The Bridegroom. A score of lying words placed in an 
honest hand — a villainous bit of paper brought to the 



9 2 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



gaze of a pair of trusting eyes. Who could have done it, 
I ask — and why ? 

The Best Max. We never learned. 

The Bridegroom. I have indeed lived freely, but who 
shall say that I have seriously overpassed the bounds ? 

[The Damsels blush, and stoop to hide their faces 
among the lilies. But their blushes are repeated upon the 
pavement.] 

The Best Man. No one. 

The Bridegroom. I went to her brother. What I told 
him satisfied him. But who could have written that let- 
ter ? And why ? 

The Best Max. You never learned. 

The Bridegroom. But as bad followed — or worse. 
What was next attacked ? My courage as a soldier. 
Mine — mine ! 

[The Fourth Window. An army with banners. The 
leaders of the host rest on their swordhilts and gaze down- 
ward with satirical and contemptuous smiles. Above the 
ranks rise flags of scarlet and purple that flaunt in airy de- 
rision and dapple die sculptured pillar.] 

The Bridegroom. I demanded a hearing. I combated 
the unworthy charges sent back across those wastes of 
sand and of sea. 1 summoned my witnesses. } on spoke 
forme; briefly, quietly, one might almost have said reluc- 
tantly. 

lln- Bj -i Man. You were above such accusations. 

The Bridi groom. Your words, added to those of others, 
sufficed. And thai evening Angela kissed me for the un- 
tami lied soldier that 1 was. 



AT SAINT JUDAS'S 93 

The Best Man. Then I said enough. (To himself.) 
Too much, perhaps. 

[The Leader of the Army lifts a foreshortened sword, and 
makes a movement as if of warning. But neither of the 
pair interprets his movement, for neither sees it.] 

The Bridegroom. I came at last, then, to stand forth 
whole, sound, unscathed. I. But the others? — my 
bride ? her parents ? . . . 

[The Fifth Window. A rising of the sheeted Dead. 
The sun, half hidden by a passing cloud, but partly pene- 
trates the dull and spectral panes.] 

The Bridegroom. A rumor ran that my orphaned 
bride had been born out of wedlock — that no priest had 
ever blessed the union of . . . O, it was foul ! I beat at 
the doors of town-halls ; I rained blows upon the portals of 
parish churches : my Angela should not be thus doubly 
and disgracefully orphaned. I searched the records, dim 
and dusty as they were. And I brought the truth tri- 
umphantly to light. 

[The sun reappears. The Dead throw back their cowls. 
Their eyes sparkle, their cheeks are flushed with life. They 
raise their full-fleshed hands in benediction.] 

The Bridegroom. But who could have started that 
rumor ? And why ? 

The Best Man. Who, indeed ? You have never 
learned. 

The Bridegroom. But even that was not enough. 



94 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



Worse followed — you know what. Word passed that 
Angela herself . . . No, no; I cannot say it. I — I 
heard that she was false. . . . 

[The Sixth Window; A trio of female figures — Love, 
Truth and Purity — entwined in one another's arms. 
Their eyes are startled; their garments quiver and scintil- 
late in reds and ambers and pale greens. Their mouths 
open, but whether in condemnation or in defense it is too 
soon to say. From that quarter, or from another, there 
comes the chant: Iniquos odio habit v. J 

The Bridegroom. — that she was untrue . . . impure. 
. . . Yes, but the last great lie was faced and routed. 
Here I await her; one moment more and she will have 
come. {Happy tears course iridescently down the checks of 
the three Virgins.) Hark, hark ! I hear even now their 
carriage-wheels without. 

[The Sacristan enters.] 

The Sacristan. Noon, and past noon. And the bride 
does not come. 

The Best Man. The chimes have long since ceased 
pealing. 

The Sacristan. The whole church questions, and 
whispers ; — do you not hear? 

The Bridegroom. Nothing can prevent that. Let the 
bells be heard too. 

[The Sacristan closes the door leading into the church. 

and retires by means of a second one Opposite. Through 
walls, or doors, or windows are heard the words: Quart 
fremuerunt gentes t \ 



AT SAINT JUDAS'S 95 

The Best Man. The bells may ring, but they will bring 
you nothing. 

The Bridegroom. What do you mean, my friend ? 
The Best Man. She will not come. 

[The Seventh Window. The Seven Cardinal Virtues; 
they change, with a slow but relentless movement of color, 
of outline, of feature, into the Seven Deadly Sins. This 
transformation, like all the others, passes unheeded.] 

The Best Man. She will not come. Have you not 
heard ? 

The Bridegroom. Heard what ? 

The Best Man. What every one else has heard"; what 
fills the church with smiles and whispers even now. 

The Bridegroom. What have you to tell me ? 

The Best Man. It is always thus. The most concerned 
is ever the last to learn. 

The Bridegroom. What have I to learn ? 

The Best Man. This : that she has sinned. 

The Bridegroom. That should have been said before. 
Or, better and more truly, not at all. 

The Best Man. They say that she has sinned, and 
sinned — with me. 

The Bridegroom. O, my enemy ! unseen, but unre- 
lenting ! And what is your response ? 

The Best Man. Were the other reports true ? 

The Bridegroom. Not one of them. 

The Best Man. Ah . . . Perhaps the chimes will be- 
gin again. Perhaps the bride will yet appear. Perhaps 
those whisperings will cease. Do you hear them ? 

The Bridegroom. Yes — even through that door. 

The Best Man. Do you hear the bells ? 



96 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Bridegroom. No. 

The Best Man. Do you hear the bride arriving ? 

The Bridegroom. Not yet. 

The Best Man. Ah . . . [A pause. 

The Bridegroom. Is it true — what you say? Is it 
true ? Is it true ? 

The Best Man. Why need that matter? It is no- 
thing ; let it pass. 

The Bridegroom. Nothing ? . . . Let it pass ? . . . 

The Best Man. Yes. / am here. And she will never 
be. You may wait, but you shall wait in vain. {He places 
his hand upon the other's shoulder.) If she were to come, 
I should not let her have you. She shall not have you. 
Nobody shall have you. 

The Bridegroom. What is your meaning, Oliver ? 

[The Deadliest of the Seven Sins hides her face ; it is 
too hideous for contemplation.] 

The Best Man. I shall not let you go. Our friendship 
has been too long, too close, too intimate. It shall not be 
destroyed; it shall not be broken. No one shall come 
between us. 

The Bridegroom. Peace, Oliver, in heaven's name ! 

The Best Man. Why have we lived so long together 
— why shared each other's every thought ? To be com- 
pletely sundered now ? — Why did I save your life ? To 
have it taken from me thus? — Why did you save mine ? 
That you might cast this blight upon it in the end ? — 
She shall not have you ! I will do everything to prevent 
it! I have done everything to pre — . . . 

The Bridegroom. Ha! It is you who have attacked 
my honor? 



AT SAINT JUDAS'S 97 

The Best Man. Your honor is secure. 
The Bridegroom. It is you who have questioned my 
courage ? 

The Best Man. You are brave ; I believe that. 

The Bridegroom. It is you who have insulted my love ? 

The Best Man. No one loves you more than I. 

[The sculptured wreath entwined round the great cen- 
tral column writhes in descending spirals, like a vast 
serpent.] 

The Bridegroom. You are a liar, a traitor, a perjurer, 
and you shall die. 

The Best Man. One of us shall die. 

The Bridegroom. One of us two shall die. It shall be 
you. 

The Best Man. One of us shall die — one of us three. 
She shall die ; it is she who has come between us. 

The Bridegroom (drawing his sword). You shall die. 
I shall kill you with my own hands. 

[The chimes begin to ring. A sound of rumbling wheels 
and trampling hoofs is heard outside. A procession of 
priests and acolytes crosses the sacristy on the way into 
the church. They pause at the signs of combat.] 

The Bridegroom. Ah ! She comes ! She believes in 
me ! And so shall all the others ! They do, already ; I 
will not believe the throng makes sport of our fair fame. 
[To the priests) Move on; move on! I will follow you 
within a moment. 

[The procession traverses the sacristy and moves on to- 
ward the high altar. The Bridegroom shuts the door be- 



9 8 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

hind it. The Best Max, springing forward, thrusts him 
from it, and then stands staunchly with his own back 
against its panels.] 

The Best Man. You shall not pass. You shall never 
pass — to her. 

The Bridegroom. Stand aside. Let me through. 

The Best Man. I do not mean to fail at the last mo- 
ment. I shall not allow so many good endeavors to go 
for naught. 

The Bridegroom. Stand aside. I hate you ; I detest 
you ; I despise you ; I loathe you. 

The Best Man. You hate me ? That cannot be ! 

The Bridegroom. I hate you with my whole heart. I 
loathe you with my whole soul. 

The Best Man. You loathe me? I, who have done 
so much . . . 

The Bridegroom. You are not fit to live. You are 
not fit to die. But die you shall. I shall not kill you. 
You shall kill yourself. You shall do it now, and I shall 
see you do it. You have no other road to redemption. 

The Best Man. We have been friends always ... I 
have loved you all my life . . . The thought of her made 
me mad — made me desperate . . . 

The Bridegroom. Time presses. Use your blade. 

[The Eighth Window. The Angelic Host trumpeting 
from the clouds, while Lucifer plunges headlong toward 
the Pit : the wonder is that he can fall so long, so fast, so 
far. 

When the Bridegroom opens the door into the church, 
the Bride is seen coming up the aisle, while the choir- 
boys and the organ unite in a resounding Gloria. Upon 



AT SAINT JUDAS'S 9 g 

the floor of the sacristy lies the body of a man in a pool of 
blood. As the Bride and the Bridegroom meet before 
the altar rail, the Eight Windows, dappling the floor of 
the sacristy with a thousand varied splotches of color — 
(but there is one, broader and brighter than them all) — 
shudder back convulsively to their pristine selves.] 



THE LIGHT THAT ALWAYS IS. 



THE LIGHT THAT ALWAYS IS. 



PERSONS. 

The Journeyman. Various members of his 
The Devotee. Family. 

The Old Campaigner. Two Processions, and an 
The Householder. Army on the march. 

The porch of the almshouse of St. Just. Palings and 
clipped box-trees screen it from the highroad that runs 
through the village; and the thatched cottage of the 
Householder, over the way, is its nearest neighbor. 



The Devotee {folding his withered old hands). No, I 
have never married. 

The Old Campaigner {smoothing an empty sleeve). 
Norl. 

The Devotee. The church itself has been the sheltering 
roof above my head ; the glow of the high altar has kept 
me warmer than any hearth-fire could have done ; and in 
the companionship of the great body of true believers have 
I found the comforts and consolations of the home circle. 
I have saved my own soul; I have never dared — nor 
wished — to impose the same hard task upon another 
soul. 



io4 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Campaigner. I do not claim to have saved my 
soul, but up to this time I have saved my body — no 
lighter thing, believe me. Nor shall I claim to have with- 
held your hard task from another; but I have never mar- 
ried — if that is what you mean. My sword was my bride; 
my general was my divinity. Between them, they kept 
me busy, interested, satisfied. 

The Householder. And can either of you believe that 
he has done his full duty toward himself and toward the 
world ? Both of you have lost the real joy and signifi- 
cance of life . . . 

The Devotee. I have found the duty of life to lie in a 
praise of the divine goodness and a heed to the divine 
decrees. 

The Campaigner. And I have found the chief joy and 
significance of life to lie in the impressing, so far as might be, 
of my own will and power on other men. 

The Devotee. I have never lagged behind my leader. 

The Campaigner. Nor I, believe me, behind mine. 

The Householder. But neither of them has led you 
by the true path to the true goal; neither has led you, 
through the joys of a first love, to your own roof-tree, to 
your own hearth-stone, to the loving ministrations of a 
wife, to the affectionate caresses of a flock of happy children. 

The Devotee. You may be right ; but my duty — 

The Householder. Your duty? My duty — every- 
dutj ; his duty toward himself, toward woman, 
toward society, toward the divine intention. 

The hi votee. Have you taken all your crosses upon 
your lelf — ? 

The ll"i 5Eholder. You shall not call them cro! 

Tin- Devotee. — all your crosses upon yourself from a 
sense of duty ? 1 will maintain that you had no thought 



THE LIGHT THAT ALWAYS IS 



of duty; you followed merely your inclinations. You 
were prompted by simple selfishness and self-indulgence. 

The Householder. I, the father and protector of a 
half-score of children, to be accused of selfishness, of self- 
indulgence ! Through all these cruel times of war and 
want, bread has never yet failed beneath my roof. 

The Campaigner. Can you believe that you actually 
entered upon the thorny path of matrimony — ? 

The Householder. You shall not call it a thorny path! 

The Campaigner. — upon the thorny path of matrimony 
from a pure sense of duty ? No ; you were impelled by 
necessity — the necessities of your own nature. Passion 
started you, and the momentum of mere habit has carried 
you along. 

The Householder. These words to me, the head and 
mainstay of the village ! Through all this year of violence 
and of outrage no harm has come to a single soul within 
our bounds. 

The Devotee. Do not hint at our helplessness. 

The Campaigner. Do not taunt us with our poverty. 

The Devotee. My prop has never failed me ; my re- 
ward will come in good season. 

The Campaigner. Mine has come already. I am in- 
deed old and broken and crippled, but my country gives 
me my daily pipe and glass, and my window, opening 
upon the highway, shows me all the world as it passes by. 

The Devotee. I am equally well housed here, and 
equally content. I think of answered prayers, of pros- 
perity for the just, of the coming unity of man beneath 
the sheltering wings of a universal mother-church. I 
have but one wish : breath and ardor to add my prayers 
to those of all the good men who cry for the passing 
of our present evils — this cruel and lingering war, this 



106 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

scarcity throughout the land, this sickness and suspense 
within our houses. 

The Campaigner. And I but one regret : that I can 
no longer mount my charger and draw my saber and 
help to hunt these villainous intruders from our land. 
Our men may march by before many hours are spent ; 
yet I can do no more than stand within this porch and 
wave a single arm at their victorious passing. But there 
have been other and different days : days of smoke and 
flame, days of thundering charges, days of triumphal en- 
tries ; and that day when the Commander himself fas- 
tened this medal upon my breast. 

The Householder. To such a wish and to such a 
regret, I add one firm intention : to hold my own, to 
cherish and protect my family, and to remain the firm, 
true head of this little community. 

[The Journeyman, with his tools slung across his shoul- 
der, comes singing along the highway.] 

The Householder. Here comes a careless fellow. 
Little matters it to him that we are in the midst of war 
and of scarcity, or that almost ever}' household has its 
sick wife or its ailing child . . . 

The Campaigner. But his song is not a merry one. 

The Journeyman {coming up). Is it a sad one ? 

The Householder. No. But why do you sing at all ? 
— for lack of thought ? 

The Journeyman. For rest from thought. 

The Devotee. Have you to think at your work ? 

The Journeyman. Not at all. The movement of my 
hand alone is enough to engage and satisfy me. 

The Househoi.im k. You will not think between times 
on the road ? You wish never to think at all ? 



THE LIGHT THAT ALWAYS IS 107 

The Journeyman. You have it. Thought is a sad 
mistake. Avoid it as far as possible. 

The Householder. That may do for one who would 
seem to have no home, no family, no responsibilities, no 
cares. 

The Journeyman. You are right. I have no ties, no 
settled habitation. I simply fling my tools across my back 
and trudge along the road from place to place. I am cur- 
rent everywhere. I see everything that goes on — do you 
wonder that I hardly care to think ? 

The Householder. But / think — I must ; — for my 
home, my family. Ah, young man, you lose the crowning 
joy of life. To be the ruler of your own fireside, the 
center of a circle of loving and ministering — 

[Angry voices come across from the Householder's 
dooryard. A middle-aged woman and a grown girl are 
seen in violent altercation. A number of young boys, a 
second brood apparently, tug with inimical intent at the 
girl's ankles and elbows.] 

The Campaigner. Cross over in the interests of peace! 
[The Householder leaves.] 

The Devotee. The stepdaughter does not take kindly 
to the new rule. 

The Journeyman. Our friend has been married once 
before, then? 

The Campaigner. Twice. His first wife died in child- 
bed, leaving a numerous flock behind her. I have heard 
her spoken of as an idle and wasteful creature. 

The Devotee. His second drove all the elder of her 
stepchildren from home, and her cruelty or her neglect 



108 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

soon reduced the number of the younger. Then she her- 
self left — with another woman's husband. 

The Journeyman. And the third? 

The Campaigner. You have seen her — and heard her. 
The sick child now beneath that roof must be charged to 
her indifference. 

The Journeyman. And that quarrel — what was its 
nature ? 

The Campaigner. It was religious. 

The Devotee. No; it was merely domestic. 

The Campaigner. It was the clash of rival faiths. 

The Devotee. Not at all; it was simply the clash of 
contending authorities. 

The Journeyman. I should have supposed his home 
life one of great peace and felicity. Vet he seemed to re- 
proach me for my single state — for my having failed to 
add to the sum total of the human race, and by conse- 
quence to the sum total of human happiness. I take some 
credit, however, for never having forced an earthly career 
upon a single human soul : no struggle, no suffering, no 
injustice, no poverty, no temptation, no damnation, no 
fight through the thorny paths of a world where only one 
out of a hundred is the right one. 

The Devotee. I agree with you most heartily. But — 

The Campaigner. And I. Yet — 

The Devotee. I myself have never sought happiness in 
married life. However — 

The Campaigner. And I — I never could have found 
it there. Nevertheless — 

The Journeyman. But, yet, however, nevertheless . . .? 

The Devotee. Yet matrimony is an approved and ac- 
cepted arrangement. 

The Campaigner. And we are bound to acknowledge 



THE LIGHT THAT ALWAYS IS 



°9 



that it has brought safety to many souls and happiness to 
many hearts. 

The Devotee. I could not attempt to save others; I 
have found it hard enough to save myself. I should not 
care for the responsibility of new souls ; but if prayers, 
fasts, scourgings can placate the powers above — if sub- 
mission to the divine will can ransom my own soul . . . 

The Journeyman. You think, then, to have fathomed 
the intentions of the ruling power ? 

The Devotee. Yes. 

The Journeyman. And to have found the way to 
placate and to please the unseen orderer of all ? 

The Devotee. Yes. 

The Journeyman. Then you have done the great thing. 
I should reverence you — if you stood alone in this. But 
others have done the same. I should reverence them, too, 
if the conclusion of each were not at variance with the con- 
clusion of every other — and probably with yours, as 
well. 

The Devotee. There is but one true belief; there is 
but one true way. 

The Journeyman. Yours, doubtless.- — But you spoke 
of prayer. Can you pray ? 

The Devotee. I can. I do — daily — hourly. I do 
little else. 

The Journeyman. Then fall to your work. For an 
enemy is marching down upon you. Meet it betimes. 

The Devotee. We have met it already; we are pre- 
paring to meet it again to-day. If prayers, processions, 
banners, observances, supplications can aught avail . . . 

The Campaigner. Truly, our scarcity is not yet a 
famine. 

The Devotee. Nor can our sickness yet be termed a 



no THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

plague. And what has stayed the advance of starvation 
and of — 

The Journeyman. Again I say it — an enemy is march- 
ing toward you. 

The Devotee. I know your meaning ; but do not remind 
me of the importunities of that band of hateful heretics. — 
What, I ask you again, has stayed the advance of starva- 
tion and of pestilence if not the supplications of pure and 
trusting hearts ? — Hark ! here is your answer. 

[A kind of wailing chant is heard a little distance down 
the roadway. It is immediately echoed, with a difference, 
from the opposite direction, and two processions of sup- 
pliants advance and meet in the highway before the alms- 
house. The leader of one procession wears a broad cloak 
of embroidered yellow silk ; the leader of the other wears 
a long, close black coat. The one procession depends 
chiefly upon a big purple banner ; the other upon a multi- 
tude of little black books. The one is joined by the 
Householder and his daughter ; the other by the House- 
holder's wife.] 

The Campaigner. I said it was a religious quarrel. 

The Journeyman. Is this the time for any quarrel at 
all? 

The Devotee {viewing one of the processions with an 
angry disgust). Is that the way to walk ? Is that the way 
to turn one's eyes? Is that the way to fold one's hands? 
Is that the tongue for addressing the throne of grace ? No 
wonder that plenty is not restored! No wonder thai pes- 
tilence is but barely withheld! No wonder that our own 
people arc preparing to dispute their passage! — [He looks 
about anxiously.) Where is it ? Where did I lay it? 



THE LIGHT THAT ALWAYS IS m 

The Journeyman. What ? 

The Devotee. My stick. 

The Journeyman. You would not beat them ? 

The Devotee. They shall not nullify our prayers! 
They shall not weary the heavenly patience! There! — 
the first blow is struck ! Let me hasten to the support of 
the true cause. 

[The people of the two processions have attacked one 
another with staves. Villagers flock out of the neighbor- 
ing cottages, and many brethren issue from the almshouse 
itself, while others, in various stages of disability, look out 
through its windows. All immediately take sides, as 
prompted by prejudice, association, early education. The 
Devotee enters into the struggle with a hearty good will, 
while the Campaigner, beating upon his bench with his 
crutch, encourages both sides with his shrill crow. The 
Householder is belabored by his own wife, whose cloth- 
ing, in turn, is torn by her enraged stepdaughter.] 

The Devotee {shouting back to his associates from the 
edge of the press). Victory! victory! 

The Journeyman. I see no victory. How does he 
mean? 

The Devotee {coming nearer). Look! our banner holds 
the roadway, and our people are forming a solid mass all 
round it ! 

The Campaigner. And the others are forming another 
on the green for a second attack upon it. 

The Devotee {sinking upon his knees and beginning a 
voluble prayer in the dust of the roadway). Let it be a last- 
ing triumph for the true Faith — 

The Campaigner. And the one Hope — 



,12 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Journeyman. And the only real Charity ! 

The Devotee {rising, after many phrases of passionate 
pleading). I shall be heard — and answered. 

The Journeyman. Perhaps. But I have known the just 
to pine on prayer while the evil were fattening on blas- 
phemy. I have known all response to be withheld when 
truth, justice, every good instinct of the heart called for 
heed, for grace, for an interposing miracle indeed. So I 
have taken a middle course — and silence has neither 
thinned me nor fattened me. Even were I to pray, but 
one thing would make me more ashamed than to call 
down curses upon an enemy. 

The Householder {coming back with a bleeding face). 
What is that ? 

The Journeyman. To clamor incessantly that benefit 
and profit might descend upon myself. 

The Campaigner. I agree with what you say. Yet — 

The Householder. And I. Still — 

The Campaigner. True, one should not be too unfor- 
giving toward one's neighbor. All the same — 

The Householder. Nor too importunate for one's self. 
Notwithstanding — 

The Journeyman. Yet, still, all the same, notwithstand- 
ing . . . ? Continue. 

The Campaigner. Still, we are poor creatures depen- 
dent upon a higher power. It may fail us sometimes, but 
not always. 

The Householder. And there is comfort in the thought 
that our poor little affairs may be found to have the im- 
portance at a distance that they seem to have here close 
at hand. 

The Devotee. There is no distance. All evils are as 
near to Heaven as to us. 



THE LIGHT THAT ALWAYS IS n 3 

The Journeyman. Then pray, pray, pray ! Fall to it 
— all three of you. Pray for yourselves — and for Heaven 
too. For a great evil is drawing near. 

The Householder. What evil ? 

The Journeyman. I have told you already : an army. 
They are behind me. Listen ; do you not hear the sound 
of bugle-notes and the distant tramp of many hoofs ? 

The Campaigner. An army ? Then it is our own; no 
other is near. 

The Devotee. Our own? Then you shall see them 
march past in triumph. Else why have I prayed night 
and morning in the parish church for their success ? 

The Campaigner. They are coming! they are coming! 
Many a long day have I hoped to see them pass. 

The Householder. I even see the leaders and the 
dust of their advance. But what have we to fear ? They 
are our own men. 

The Journeyman. An army is an army. 

The Campaigner. Receive them with open arms. Give 
them of your best . . . 

[The fight in the roadway is resumed. The House- 
holder and the Devotee, with no further heed to the 
advancing host, reenter the struggle. The Householder 
is beaten by his wife's brother, and jeered by his own 
children.] 

The Journeyman. Your advice is good ; these villagers 
will do well to heed it. Let them give their best — all 
the more so, that their best is but indifferent. An army 
is an army — none the less so, an army in retreat. 

The Campaigner. An army in retreat ? But you said 
it was our army. 



H4 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Journeyman. It is our army. Can both sides 
win ? 

The Campaigner. In my time our side always did. 
Could you but have seen our hussars in action you would 
have felt the reason why. In our blue and gold we swept 
the field as a scythe shears a meadow — as bright, as keen, 
as quick, as resistless. Nothing withstood us. We cut 
down horse and man alike, just as the — 

The Journeyman. Why ? 

The Campaigner. Why ? Because our leader's saber 
beckoned us onward. 

The Journeyman. What led your leader ? 

The Campaigner. What led him ? 

The Journeyman. Yes, — what was the cause? 

The Campaigner (hesitating). The cause was our coun- 
try's, I suppose. Yes, it was for our country that we fought. 

The Journeyman. Perhaps. Men have fancied them- 
selves fighting for their country when they were only fight- 
ing for a sect, a dynasty, a despot ; for some foul and 
selfish cause too cleverly disguised for recognition ; for 
mere love of fighting's sake, — from an excess of animal 
passion or of animal spirits. 

The Campaigner. You shall not question the motives 
of our soldiers, — any more than you shall question their 
bravery, their skill, their patient self-denial and endurance — 

The Journeyman. No one will question their patience 
and endurance — as they file past. 

The CAMPAIGNER {in response to approaching sounds'). 
They are coming indeed. But you shall not call it a re- 
treat. It is a change of base; it is a piece of strategy to 
lure the enemy to destruction. 

The Journeyman. Phrase it as you please. But mere 
words will put neither sound shoes on their feet, nor 



THE LIGHT THAT ALWAYS IS 115 

strength into their tired limbs, nor food into their flapping 
stomachs. See for yourself. 

[The struggle of the village zealots is brought to an end 
by the passage of the first division of the Army. Many 
hundreds on foot, splashed with mud, stiffened with sweat, 
swathed in bandages, famished with hunger. Others limp 
alongside an extended ambulance-train, and others still, in 
various stages of dilapidation and disability, straggle here 
and there over the borders of the wide roadway.] 

The Campaigner (with reproach, to the returning De- 
votee). This, then, is your victory ? I could have 
prayed a better one myself! 

The Devotee. You need not taunt me. It is not for 
you to say how a petition is to be answered, or when. A 
lesser favor may be withheld that a greater one may be 
vouchsafed. Wait for the end. 

[The passage of an artillery-train. Hungry and ex- 
hausted horses stumble along, dragging miry and disabled 
gun-carriages. The men astride throw famished scowls in 
the direction of storehouses and barnyards.] 

The Campaigner. Poor fellows! But they need not 
stare at our orchards ; those were stripped long ago. 

The Devotee. Nor need they peer at our hen-houses ; 
every perch has been vacant for a month. 

The Campaigner. Their eyes are sharp. They can see 
through stone walls. I should advise no one to bolt doors 
or to put up bars. 

[Other regiments of infantry, embarrassed by a great 
number of sick, disabled and wounded. A group of offi- 



n6 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

cers who pick their way along mechanically, with lax 
bridles and downcast eyes. The Householder and his 
wife are seen in another altercation upon their doorstep.] 

The Journeyman. She would close the door. Her 
husband will do well to persuade her to a seeming hospi- 
tality. 

The Campaigner. They need it; they deserve it. — But 
oh, this is not what my memory has pictured through all 
these years as war! 

[The foot-soldiers, attracted by the defensive posture of 
the Householder's wife, begin to scale the wall and to 
trample up through the garden toward the doorstep. 
Others of their number give a like attention to neighbor- 
ing houses, which the people of the two broken proces- 
sions run to protect; a few heads even look over the 
almshouse palings.] 

The Campaigner. He must let them have their way 
with the granary and the bakehouse. 

The Devotee. May he but keep them from the bed- 
chamber of his sick child I 

The Campaigner. And from the nooks and crannies of 
his chimney-place ! 

The Journeyman. He is a rich man ? 

The Devotee. He has put something by. 

[A squadron of cavalry moves past slowly. Among 
them is the Householder's eldest son.] 

The Campaigner. My old regiment! The old flags, 
the old uniforms of blue and gold, even one or two of the 



THE LIGHT THAT ALWAYS IS 117 

old officers! To think of our parades and sallies and 
charges! To recall our assaults and sacks, our medals 
and our triumphal entries ! Let me dweil on our address, 
our courage, our daring, our glory — ! 

[Several of the horsemen dismount, and join the foot- 
soldiers in their raid on cottage and barnyard. The 
Householder's son leads the way.] 

The Campaigner. And if that glory now seems the 
least shade dimmed, it will yet shine forth — and soon, be- 
lieve me. 

The Journeyman. Glory ? I see none. I see only — 

The Devotee. Look ! how he forces his way in ! He 
has never forgiven his father. 

The Campaigner. And he has never forgotten the 
nooks and crannies ! 

The Journeyman. Let us hope that he will not forget 
his sick sister — in his career of glory. Glory ? I see 
none. I see only the enlistment of brute force and brute 
passion in a cause which is but too often only half-under- 
stood, and a love of display, indulgence and adventure at 
the expense of justice, industry and happiness. I have 
never killed a fellow-creature alone and in my working- 
clothes ; and I hope never to have to do so in company 
and in uniform. 

The Householder {hastening across). Well said. Hope, 
too, that you may never help to devastate the homes of 
an honest country-folk like a flock of devouring locusts, 
that you may never chase their pigs and lambs through the 
byways saber in hand, and that your friends and neighbors 
may not stand in idle talk while the work of destruction 
is going on ! Come back and help me ! 



n8 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Devotee. We could be of no use to you. And 
see ; the last of them are leaving your precincts now. 

The Campaigner. Have they left you your gold ? 

The Householder. My gold ? There was none. The 
last went yesterday. But they are meaning to leave a 
hundred of their sick and dying upon our outskirts. 

The Journeyman. They will do that ? 

The Householder. All that, and more. They are in- 
deed moving on; but they have turned our scarcity into 
famine and our sickness into pestilence. 

The Campaigner. Do not revile them. They must live. 
They fight for us. 

The Journeyman. They themselves do not know why 
they fight. A curse upon their leader and upon his selfish 
ambitions ! 

The Householder. And so say I. But — 

The Devotee. I too. Still — 

The Householder. Indeed, they should not rob us of 
our sustenance. ■ However — 

The Devotee. Nor should they fan the flames of 
hatred and animosity. Yet, despite all that — 

The Journeyman. But, still, however, despite all that . . . ? 
Conclude. 

The Householder. Still, the defense of one's life and 
country^ and interests is indeed a glorious and ennobling 
work. 

The Devotee. And the devotion, the discipline, the 
self-abnegation demanded by the army is hardly less than 
that exacted by the church itself. 

The Campaigner. Ay, now you speak as one might 
look to hear you speak ! 

The IIofsKiioi.i'i.K. True, they have swept us clean 

and drained us dry. but they have still left us the best 



THE LIGHT THAT ALWAYS IS 



•9 



things of all : the family roof-tree, the cheery hearthstone, 
the tender care and sympathy of wife and children. 

The Devotee. True, they have thoughtlessly trampled 
our sacred banner underfoot, and have despitefully en- 
treated the little flock of the faithful; but our hope (and 
theirs, as well) still survives and flourishes — we know none 
the less surely the divine will and the divinely ordered 
way to salvation. 

The Campaigner. True, they have just passed us 
wearied and famished and footsore, but they have re- 
mained victor of many a well-contested field in the past, 
and they will rise to greater heights of glory and of triumph 
in the future. 

[A long pause, during which the Journeyman bestows 
upon the other three a close and studious regard.] 

The Journeyman. You puzzle me ; you dumfound me. 
You have shown me man in his three most important re- 
lations — his relation to woman, to his fellow-man and to 
his maker; his relations in War, in Religion and in Do- 
mesticity. And in each case I have found you most fan- 
tastically illogical. You {to the Householder) chant of 
the joys of the domestic hearth and of the blessedness of 
the home circle ; yet your wife is a shrew, your children 
are undutiful, your house is a buzzing and stinging hive of 
hates and rivalries — 

The Householder {indigna?it). And what of that? 
Would you have me forget those early days of courtship, 
my marriage, the birth of my first baby, the little family 
that grew and gathered round the old hearthstone ? Will 
you deny man the hope, through all his disappointments, 



12 o THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

that his deepest longings may yet some day be gratified? 
Go; I cannot see things as you seem to see them. 

The Journeyman. Ah! — And you [to the Old Cam- 
paigner) you prate of the glory of arms and of the joys 
of battle. But you have met with injustice full-armed and 
with cruelty triumphant; and you have just seen your in- 
vincibles drag past, torn, muddy, bleeding, despondent, 
defeated ; and you find yourself stranded here, after years 
of service, subsisting on a mere pittance doled out grudg- 
ingly by an indifferent country. 

The Campaigner {enraged). And what of that? Would 
you have me forget my first uniform, my maiden sword, 
the earliest deed of braver)' for which I was promoted and 
decorated ? Would you weaken the allegiance that has 
been my lifelong stay ? Would you withdraw from me 
the belief, held through all my hardships, that there can be 
no failure of reward for a lifetime of faithful and willing 
service? Go; I do not see things as you seem to see them. 

The Journeyman. Aha! — And you ( A' //r Devotee) 
you must have the memory of many unanswered prayers, 
of many vain cries for Heaven's justice, of many other 
shameful sectarian struggles than to-day's alone ; and not 
only you, but others too, must sometimes feel the futility 
of attempting to interpret the divine intentions and of as- 
suming to guard the sole path that leads to salvation. 

The Devotee [with a shrill anger). And what of that ? 
Would you ask me to forget my dawning aspirations toward 
the pure and the eternal, my first communion, my earliest 
years spent among a holy and learned brotherhood? 
Would you tear down the only prop that sustains me. anil 
deny me another world whose pleasures shall make up for 
the pains of this ? Go; I do not wish to see things as you 

see them. 



THE LIGHT THAT ALWAYS IS 121 

The Journeyman. You amaze me ; you sadden me — 
so far are you astray on every point that vitally concerns 
the human race! 

The Householder. Who are you, man, that would rob 
us of all that makes earth dear and life worth living ? 

The Campaigner. I half know; I have heard of the 
passing of such a one through the world. 

The Devotee. I know beyond all doubt : he is the man 
who sees things as they are. 

[They rise, expressing varying degrees of dread, anger 
and repugnance, and make as if to retire within the door- 
way.] 

All Three. Leave us ! Go your way ! 

The Journeyman {picking up his tools preparatory to 
departure). I do so. I leave you in the fool's paradise 
created by yourselves and illumined by the light that such 
eyes as yours require : the light that is, that always has 
been, that (perhaps) always will and must be. Never 
leave those precincts; you will be happier there than you 
ever could be anywhere else. But you have given me 
cause for thought — you will keep me unhappy for the rest 
of the day. Yet I have my remedy — work. For I am 
man in his fourth relation — his relation to his own sub- 
sistence, to his own continued existence in the world. I 
shall resume my toil at once — to-morrow shall find me 
too busy for thought, too busy for unhappiness. — Farewell. 

[He goes.] 



THE DEAD-AND-ALIVE. 



THE DEAD-AND-ALIVE, 



PERSONS. 

The New Little Nun. Her Lover. 

Many Dead Nuns ; among them : 
An Aged Nun. A Nun of Forty. 

An Elderly Nun. A Young Nun. 

Several living Nuns ; among them : 
The Abbess. 

Midnight in the cloister of the Convent of the Sepolte- 
Vive — the Buried- Alive : a Romanesque quadrangle which 
is flooded with moonlight and planted thick with flat tomb- 
stones. Above one side of this enclosure rise the gable of 
the chapel and the loggia of the belfry. On the opposite 
side one divines the roofs of a sleeping city and half hears 
the murmur of the sea a hundred feet below. In the dis- 
tance a mountain-peak burns and glows as if tipped with 
an enormous live coal and sends a thin veil of smoke down 
its own dark sides to wander far and wide along a sinuous 
shore. 



The New Nun {half hidden in the arched and pillared 
shade). Have I done well ? — Whom have I, save myself, 
to voice an answer ? 



i 2 6 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

[The organ-notes from the chapel cease. The light in 
the window under the gable vanishes. The Nuns, with 
the Abbess at their head, issue from the chapel, cross the 
enclosure, and disperse among their cells. From the belfry 
there comes the stroke of twelve.] 

The New Nun. Alone with the green moonlight and 
the gray tombstones. Cut off from the world completely 
and forever. For me, henceforth, there is no world. Never 
again shall I see the sky, save the small segment overhead. 
Never again shall I tread the grass, save such as may 
grow between these marble slabs. Never again shall I 
see the face of father, mother, sister, friend; never again 
hear one word that may tell me of their fate or their for- 
tune ; and never will one of them, even through a tolling 
bell, learn aught of mine. They and their world no longer 
exist for me ; I and my world (if world it may be called) 
no longer exist for them. 

[The air begins to become strangely close and oppres- 
sive. The bats flit uneasily beneath the shadowed vault- 
ing of the arcades.] 

The New Nun. And what of Angelo? Nothing. For 
me he lives no longer; he is dead, like the others. He 
never should have lived ; he never deserved to live. 
False — faithless; yet 1 believed inhim. I believed against 

belief, against reason, despite a hundred warnings. He 
went — and he (lid not return. Let him remain away; his 
return would be nothing now. 

| \ distant sound, as if of iron at work on stone : a sound 

that is cautious, yet determined, energetic, even desperate. 



THE DEAD-AND-ALIVE 127 

At the same time the tombstones grate uneasily upon their 
foundations.] 

The New Nun. Our wedding-day was set. He did 
not come. I hoped till hope was useless; I waited, and 
waiting went for naught. Then I came here. I could 
think of no better place. 

[The distant sound seems nearer; it rings with a pas- 
sionate and high-hearted energy. At the same time the 
gravestones shift and heave, as if about to lift and to dis- 
close their secrets.] 

The New Nun. What shall I find here? — I am too 
new to know. Peace, let me hope; refuge too, I beg, 
from the cruelty of human eyes. 

[The sound draws nearer still; it seems close to the 
dusky corner into which the New Nun has shrunk.] 

The New Nun. What do I hear? What sound so 
strange and yet so near at hand ? 

[The tombstones jar and labor, and the Dead Nuns, 
clad in conventual garb, rise from their graves. They 
congregate in the middle of the cloister.] 

A Young Nun. Why are we summoned ? 

A Nun of Forty. How, rather, are we summoned ? 

An Elderly Nun. But one thing could accomplish 
this : the presence of a lover. 

The Young Nun. How do you know that? 

The Elderly Nun. I have seen it happen once be- 
fore — almost. 



128 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Nun of Forty. Almost? 

The Elderly Nun. It was in my young days. I was 
a midnight watcher. I heard sounds such as we hear now 
— listen ! I saw these gravestones heave and sway. I 
ran to the Abbess. A young man was found working his 
will upon our walls. He was taken — in time. The 
stones resumed a quiet that has never been broken till 
now. 

The Young Nun. What became of the man ? 

The Elderly Nun. You are not to ask. None ever 
learned his fate ; it was in the old days . . . 

The Nun of Forty. You told, you say. Should we go 
and tell now ? 

An Aged Nun. Tell ? tell ? Do you think we could ? 

The Nun of Forty. We might try. 

The Young Nun. You shall not try. This shall not be 
told. 

The Elderly Nun. But — a man . . . 

The Nun of Forty. No man could possibly be ad- 
mitted here. 

The Elderly Nun. I have seen a cardinal turned from 
our door. 

The Aged Nun. I have seen a pope repulsed. The 
Abbess admitted him, yes; but she veiled her face and an- 
swered only with yes and no. 

The Young Nun (as the sound rings louder). You shall 
not tell. Indeed, you cannot tell. And even if you could 
I would not let you tell. 

The Aged Nun. You are a rebellious spirit. How- 
came you to seek these walls ? 

The Young Nun. Have you ever heard o\ a headstrong 
pride ? 

The Aged Nun. I have. 



THE DEAD-AND-ALIVE 



129 



The Young Nun. Do you know what lengths it may 
lead one to ? 

The Aged Nun {humbly). I fear not. 

The Young Nun. Then you would not understand. 
{Suddenly, to the Nun of Forty.) Could you? 

The Nun of Forty. I came from a mountain village. 
He was cruel to me. My parents, when they learned, 
were hardly less so. The whole little town turned against 
me ; and I was glad to enter here. Pride ? The best of 
those poor folk cannot over-indulge in pride; and I — I 
was not one of the best. — I could not understand. 

The Young Nun. Then we will let it pass. — I was no 
village girl ; the whole of a wide city rang with my name. 
I was only twenty when I came here. I lived within these 
walls five years. So that I am only twenty-five to-night. 
As for my fifteen years in the grave, they count for naught. 
I am still young and energetic, and I shake them off. 

The Aged Nun. But I am seventy — perhaps eighty; 
for I lost all count long years before I died. I have no 
strength to throw off a single day. 

The Young Nun. I lived here five years, I say — five 
raging, desperate years ; yet I died in full possession of my 
senses. And I have kept them ever since. 

The Nun of Forty. What caused your death ? 

The Young Nun. What caused my death ? Never 
mind what caused my death — you shall not ask. They 
could not prove it ! They could not prove it, I say ! 

The Nun of Forty. They tried to prove it. Not every 
one who departed under such a cloud could have hoped 
for rest in consecrated ground. 

The Young Nun. We will not talk of clouds. — I died, 
as I say, in full possession of my senses ; and, believe me, 
I have them with me even yet. / was not driven into 
9 



i 3 o 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



melancholia, like the poor soul who lies moaning now be- 
hind us on another's stone ; / was not chained for twenty 
years in a mad-cell, like the pitiful creature who crouches 
gibbering yonder in the dark. 

The Elderly Nun. Hush ! such things are not to be 
mentioned — not to be recalled. 

[The air becomes closer. The luster of the moon be- 
gins to dim.] 

The Young Nun. I will recall others, then. First, let 
me tell you one thing : while I was living here I saw the 
whole sky — and more than once. 

The Nun of Forty. Impossible. 

The Young Nun. By no means. You think that all 
the windows here are inner ones — that no single one looks 
without. You are mistaken. There is one such window 
— or was ; secret, perhaps, — forgotten, possibly. I made 
it mine. I saw the world. Not only the sky, but the sea 
and the sea-shore for miles along, and the glow and fume 
of the mountain, and the domes of the town below us, and 
the ships in its harbor. 

The Nun of Forty. I never saw a ship. 

The Aged Nun. I have long forgotten the sea. 

The Melancholy Nun. He was a sailor — a sailor. 

The Young Nun. One day I saw the harbor full of 
black war-ships. I saw the smoke of their cannon. 1 saw 
the town walls half battered down. 

The Elderly Nun. What did that mean ? 

The Young Nun. I do not know. I never learned. 
I made it mean a thousand things. For I kept my wits 
throughout, as I have told you. 

The Nun of Forty. I have kept mine, too. 



THE DEAD-AND-ALIVE 



3 1 



The Young Nun. Such as they are. — Another day I 
saw the city draped in black. Processions of suppliants 
filed through the streets to the churches. I think there 
was a pestilence. I think that hundreds died — thousands. 
I thought of my mother — she was not to blame. I thought 
of my sister — she was, she was, she was ! I wondered if 
they had fallen victims — of course I never learned. I 
thought of my lover — 

The Nun of Forty. You had a lover, too ? 

The Young Nun. Yes. 

The Nun of Forty. Was he cruel ? 

The Young Nun. As cruel as yours. But no more 
about him. 

The Nun of Forty {passionately, to the Aged Nun). 
Why did you come here ? 

The Aged Nun. I have forgotten. 

[The moon still dims. A sweeping flight of restless sea- 
birds passes overhead. The work on the wall proceeds, 
unheeded by the Nuns.] 

The Young Nun. So, as you hear, I saw things. I 
could speculate — I could conjecture. Fasts were not 
enough for me, nor feasts, nor vigils. Flagellations were 
not sufficient to vary the monotony. It was not all in all 
if my linnet piped hoarsely — 

The Elderly Nun. Do not touch on such themes. 
My poor thrush — I sorrowed over him for more than a 
month. 

The Young Nun. It was not an event for me when I 
pricked my finger at sewing — 

The Aged Nun. I have made an event out of less than 
that. 



132 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Young Nun. I lived upon observation and upon 
recollections. For I had moved in the great world, and I 
had many things to recall. 

The Elderly Nun. I was only a toiler in the fields. I 
knew trees, cattle, toil, hunger — little else. There was 
not much to see ; there was even less to remember. 

The Young Nun. Then let me tell you. Imagine a 
beautiful day in early spring, and a parade of carriages 
along the broad sea-front. Carriages and horses alike 
garlanded with flowers, and multitudes more of flowers 
flung from hand to hand as the fete went on. With the 
man who was to marry me I drove thus before the eyes of 
the entire city and flung my roses broadcast with the rest. 
Roses, I say ; nothing grows here save asphodels. — My 
sister was with us ... he left me . . . he married her . . . 

The Nun of Forty. And then ? 

The Young Nun {with vehemence). Ah, the plague! 
It was a welcome sight ! But enough of that. — Were you 
ever in a theater ? 

The Nun of Forty. A theater ? I ? 

The Elderly Nun. No more than in a carriage. 

The Young Nun. Then let me tell you. I went for the 
last time just a week before I came here. I sat near him 
— again the whole town saw us. But why do I return to 
him ? — A beautiful creature appeared upon the stage. 

The Elderly Nun. What did she do? 

The Young Nun. She danced. 

The Nun of Forty. What did she wear? 

The Young Nun. Little enough. A breadth or two of 
gauze ; and jewels. 

lip Klderly Nun. Ah, jewels, jewels! 

The Young Nun. Jewels, indeed; they were better 
than mine! She stood and spun upon one toe — 



THE DEAD-AND-ALIVE 



133 



The Nun of Forty. Why ? 

The Young Nun. — as if she had no weight whatever 
— as if nothing in the world could be easier. It was de- 
lightful. I think I could have done it too, if I had but 
been put at it in time. And how she smiled! 

The Elderly Nun. Why ? 

The Young Nun. Why ? She must have had her rea- 
sons. Could she have smiled at ... ? But enough of 
that. — As I say, she smiled. So did I. I could always 
smile — (too readily, too ignorantly, perhaps) ; I had beau- 
tiful teeth. I have them yet. I can smile yet. Shall I ? 

The Elderly Nun [coldly). This is no place for smiles. 

The Young Nun. Perhaps you are right. But be that 
as it may, I am alive. And that is just. Dead in life : 
alive in death. And justice is all I ask. 

[The sound of a stone falling upon other stones. The 
air grows more and more oppressive. The peak of the 
mountain glows with a kindling anger and its trail of 
smoke moves on with a darker and wider reach. The 
earth seems to shiver,] 

The Young Nun„ Ah, he is advancing! I hear the 
wall give way. 

The Elderly Nun. He should be stopped. 

The Young Nun. He shall not be stopped. I am cu- 
rious ; I am interested ; I have my wits still, I tell you. 
I believe in him. But — whom has he come to steal away ? 

The Elderly Nun. To steal away? This must be 
told. I shall run to the Abbess. 

The Young Nun. Go, wake her ; go try to tell her. 
Could she hear you ? Could she see you ? 



134 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



[Another stone falls. The bats tumble about heedlessly 
in the murky moonlight. Half awakened land-birds flit 
hither and thither with wild cries of alarm. The convent 
belfry quivers from top to base, and its bells are rung — 
but not by human hands.] 

The Nun of Forty. I am stifling — stifling. The air 
of the grave is wholesomer than this. I will go back — 1 
will find my tombstone and draw it over me again. 

[The New Little Nun, with a cry of terror, starts from 
her corner and rushes out into the edge of the moonlight: 
a hand has been thrust through the gap in the wall and a 
voice has followed.] 

The Voice. Bianca! Bianca ! 

The New Nun. It is Angelo! It is Angelo ! 

[The Nuns advance toward her. It were vain to say 
(from her own terror and from the failing light) whether 
or no she hears them or sees them. J 

The Young Nun. This, then, it is whom he has come 
to steal away. Dear child, dear child ! — do any of you 
know her ? 

The Elderly Nun. She is later than our time. She is 
far too young. 

The Nun of Forty. 1 think she is but newly come. 

The Young Nun [motioning). Child, child, go with 
him! Go, or you too may one day be glad to drink . . . 

The Nun of Forty. Ah! that is how you died! I 
knew it! I knew it! And yet you dared to take \our 
place among us others who — 



THE DEAD-AND-ALIVE 135 

The Young Nun. Go, child! Do not stop for the 
poison, the flagellations, the straps and chains of the mad- 
cell ! — Does she hear me ? — Does she hear me ? — What 
did she answer him ? Tell me, tell me! 

The Elderly Nun. She only called him by name; 
she called him Angelo. 

The Young Nun. Angelo ? His name ! Let me ad- 
vance ; let the moon but shine out ; let me only see his 
face ! 'T is he, 't is he ! — But no ; that is impossible. 
And yet — 

The Nun of Forty. You recognize him ? 

The Young Nun. I know the face. And now — I 
know the voice. It is his son — his son ! — O girl, beware ! 

Angelo {advancing through the opening). At last! I 
have sought you for three long days. 

Bianca {waving him back). Leave me, leave me ! 

Angelo. None of your friends could tell me where you 
were. None of your family wotild tell me. 

Bianca. What need to know ? What need to know ? 

Angelo. All the need in the world. I had no other 
need. 

Bianca. You left me once ; now leave me forever. 
You have been faithless — cruelly faithless. 

The Young Nun. Faithless ! It is in the blood ! My 
child, beware ! 

Angelo. I myself am but escaped from confinement. 
Your uncle — 

Bianca. It was my uncle who first warned me. I be- 
lieved him ; I believe him yet. 

Angelo. — and your cousins — 

Bianca. They warned the poor orphan too. And then 
they told me that you had gone ; they told me that you 
would never come back to me . . . 



136 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

Angelo. It is your uncle and your cousins who have 
separated us. 

Bianca. But why ? 

Angelo. Why ? Could you bring your fortune with 
you here ? To whom should it then fall but to them ? 
I have been faithful. 

The Young Nun. Believe it, child, even if it is not 
true ! Any fate rather than the one that awaits you here ! 

[A thick dun cloud, illumined by intermittent flashes of 
volcanic fire, fills the cloister, and the lashings and groan- 
ings of a terrified sea come to them from below. The 
foundation-walls of the convent are all a-tremble, and the 
bells ring in an uncontrollable frenzy. The Nuns grope 
through the smoke and the darkness to seek retreat in 
their graves : not one can find her own.] 

Angelo (to Bianca). You must leave here with me at once. 

Bianca. How is that possible ? 

Angelo. Where I have climbed up you can climb down. 

Bianca. It is so far ... It seems so dizzy . . . The 
opening is so small . . . 

The Young Nun (standing alone in the middle of the en- 
closure, whence she shouts with all her might, as she waves 
her garment with two will arms). Try. try! Use your 
own hands, girl, on those horrible stones! — If such a 
chance had ever come to me ! {But they do not see her 
through the whirling smoke, nor do they hear her above the 
thunderous noise.) 

Angelo. Courage, courage! 

The Young Nun. Courage — yes; take all of mine ! 

I A violent shock df earthquake. The graves are com- 
pletely upheaved and dismantled; the belfry toners: and 



THE DEAD-AND-ALIVE 



137 



the Abbess and her train fly screaming past the church- 
door just as the walls of the cloister are rent from top to 
bottom. Through the opening thus made one sees the 
toppling towers of the city and the confounded shipping 
of the port, and beneath the lifting smoke one views a score 
of burning villages upon the lava-swept mountain-side.] 

Angelo {pointing to the cleft wall). There lies our 
way. 

[Angelo and Bianca pick their path through the wrecked 
and dismantled tombs, upon whose ruins the Dead Nuns 
lie wailing, affrighted and disconsolate.] 

The Young Nun. My narrow home is ruined with the 
rest. I could not live in life ; I cannot rest in death. 
Come, the whole world shall now be mine. I have many 
lost years to regain, and where could I make a beginning 
of greater promise ? Henceforth I shall pluck not the 
asphodel, but the amaranth; my moonlight shall no longer 
be green, but rosy-red; and even the humblest of the 
paths I take shall be paved for me with shimmering rain- 
bows. 

[She treads a resolute way among the lamenting choir, 
and disappears in the pall of smoke as she follows Angelo 
and Bianca down the hillside.] 



NORTHERN LIGHTS. 



NORTHERN LIGHTS. 



PERSONS. 



Oscar Holme. The Pastor. 

Hilda, his wife. The Doctor. 

Their Two Children. A Nurse. 



A living-room in a villa overlooking the North Sea. 
Through the window one observes the budding greenery 
of early spring. In the open fireplace a brisk fire flames 
and flickers. To one side, a desk littered with papers. 
Upon the wall, a picture of Saint Lawrence roasting on 
his gridiron. Present : the Pastor and the Doctor. 



The Doctor. You say that she has scarcely spoken a 
word for three days ? 

The Pastor. Not one — save now and then, in a fit of 
reviving petulancy. 

The Doctor. Then I have indeed chosen an unfortu- 
nate time to pay my respects. 

The Pastor. The friendly advances of a new neighbor 
— you have there your justification. Besides, she is al- 
ways sure to make lost time good. {He wipes his brow 
with his handkerchief.) 



I4 2 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Doctor. You find it warm here ? So do I — much 
too warm either for health or comfort. 

The Pastor. This is the last house in the neighborhood 
to give up a fire in the spring, and the first to renew it in 
the autumn. 

The Doctor. An open fire is sometimes cheerful. 

The Pastor. That is the reason she gives. 

The Doctor. They burn fagots, I see. 

The Pastor. And sometimes other things. I have 
known her to burn her husband's manuscripts — and her 
children's toys. 

The Doctor {taking up a book from center-table). She 
is something of a reader, I judge ; the wife of a literary 
man . . . 

The Pastor. By no means. Books annoy her, rather ; 
they irritate her; a dull book of just the right sort will 
sometimes drive her frantic. She is so easily bored; she 
is a mere bundle of nerves. 

The Doctor. Yet this book appears to contain her sig- 
nature: "Hilda Holme, Brussels, October ioth." 

The Pastor. She brought it back home with her. 

The Doctor. It is entitled : " The Great Conflagrations 
of History " ; here is a leaf turned down at the Fire of Lon- 
don. London — she must have found much to interest her 
in that great capital. What a privilege to visit it! — one 
that I may never enjoy, I fear. 

The Pastor. On the contrary, — it depressed her; then 
it began to wear upon her — she declares that it almost 
drove her insane. The thick air weighed upon her ; the 
uproar of traffic racked her nerves ... As to visiting for- 
eign capitals — well, why should one attempt to become a 
cosmopolite? Should not one rather remain national. 
provincial, even parochial, above all individual ? To be 



NORTHERN LIGHTS 



43 



individual, to assert one's own personality — ah, you have 
it there. 

The Doctor. I know your views. — And here is another 
book, also hers : " Travels among the Fire-worshipers of 
Persia." And a third: "The Book of Martyrs" . . . This 
is really very — 

The Pastor. Leave it. She comes. 



[Enter Mrs. Hilda Holme, a pale, slender young woman 
with active eyes, a drawn face, and long, thin fingers which 
she works interlacingly. She is apparently passing from 
one mood to another, and the presence of visitors seems to 
help the transition.] 

The Pastor. We are glad to see you, my dear Hilda, 
and to find you better. Here we have Doctor Kjoldmann, 
and we must greet him with the friendliness that such a 
new-comer deserves. 

Hilda (with a slow hesitation). You are welcome, sir. 
(She looks ahead rather vacantly, and her hands continue 
wrestling with each other.) My husband is away from 
home, but he will be back presently. 

The Doctor. You return improved, madam, after your 
long tour abroad ? 

Hilda. Return ? Abroad ? But that was many years 
ago; ten — fifteen; twenty, for aught I know. 

The Pastor. No more than five, I swear. 

Hilda. Five ? It seems like fifty. There were no 
babies then. To have careered through the world as I 
once did, and then to end in this dull and obscure hole ! — 
no society save that of books and dingy manuscripts ; a 
husband with his nose constantly in his ink-pot ; two chil- 



144 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

dren to wash and dress and dose . . . (She turns her back 
and stares out through the window.) 

The Doctor. Madam, you malign our town, I am sure. 

The Pastor. You do indeed. It is an important place, 
I assure you. It is the center of the world — if you but 
choose to believe it. I do believe it. 

The Doctor. Ah, that is right. We should believe in 
ourselves and in our own importance. Yet, the pleasure 
and the improvement incident to travel — the parks, the 
galleries, the churches, the hospitals, the castles, the 
theaters . . . 

Hilda (turning back, and with a certain animation). Do 
not think it. Such things are wearying past all belief. 
Those Florentine galleries — I walked through them for 
miles. Not one of their pictures pleased me, save the 
original of that. (She indicates the Saint Lawrence.) How 
those red flames flicker and sting ! How they light up the 
whole dark hall ! How they take hold upon those shrink- 
ing limbs ! — What is so beautiful as a fire ? Let me show 
you ! (She throws another fagot upon the hearth.) 

The Doctor (wiping his face). If you do not care for 
painting, then, there is the stage. Think of the great 
theaters of Berlin, Paris, Vienna . . . 

Hilda. I have seen them all — there is nothing more 
tiresome. Their comedies, their ballets ! I know their 
parks, their grottoes, their pavilions. In all my tour but 
one spectacle really pleased me. 

The Doctor. What was that ? 

Hilda. We were at Dresden. We went to the opera 
house. A woman in armor was laid to sleep upon a bed 
of rocks. Suddenly flames sprang up and encompassed 
her — their glare filled the whole stage. Something impelled 
me to my feet, and I felt a wild cry rising to my lips. " She 



NORTHERN LIGHTS 145 

will burn ! " I was about to scream exultingly ; " and we 
shall burn ; and the whole house will burn ! " But Oscar 
pulled me back ; and then the curtain fell. A — ah ! — 
Shall you mind if I smoke ? {She lights a cigarette.) 

The Pastor. But, Hilda, this is not usual; this is not 
— not . . . 

Hilda. I know you don't like it. Neither does Oscar. 
I do a good many things he does n't like — he is some- 
thing of a prig. But to have a touch of smoke and flame 
just under your nose is really quite delightful. I recall 
those Russian princesses at Cannes ; I ought to have been 
a princess too. Why do you look so — so . . . ? What 
should I have under my nose, then ? An ink-pot ? 

The Pastor. But, my dear Hilda — ■ 

Hilda. But, my dear Pastor — you who are always 
standing out for individuality. Really, really, you must 
allow me to be myself, I think. [She holds the match-box 
in her lap and lights match after match as the talk goes on.) 

The Pastor. It is quite true that one should strive for 
the preservation of one's own individuality — 

Hilda. Just as you have done, my dear Pastor ! You 
are precisely like the pastor in the next town, and the next, 
and the next beyond that — 

The Pastor. But my case is different, child. I have 
my professional position and reputation to consider, and 
besides — 

The Doctor. Besides, what would be the worth of a 
guide-post that followed up its own pointings ? 

Hilda. I have been no guide-post, thank heaven! 

The Pastor. But your children . . . 

Hilda, Bother! 

The Doctor. No guide-post, indeed, could have gone 
to Rome, to Paris, to Naples . . . 



I4 6 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

Hilda. Do not mention those tedious places, I beg 
you ! 

The Doctor. How, madam ? You are not happy at 
home, you are not pleased abroad? What would you 
have ? Where would you be ? 

Hilda. I do not know ; I look for a somewhere that I 
have never seen — a something that I have never had. — 
Even in Paris itself I found nothing — nothing but a Pano- 
rama: the Burning of the City by the Commune. But 
that alone was enough. How the flames soared ! how the 
roofs crashed ! how the sky shone ! how the sparks flew ! 

The Doctor. A fine work of art, no doubt. 

Hilda. Let us not talk of works of art ; let us speak of 
works of nature — of the real thing. Ah, the Girandola at 
Rome — what a grand spectacle after a month of delving 
amidst ruins and of prowling amongst churches ! It was 
Oscar who delved and prowled — and I was dragged about 
with him. But that one heavenly night — the last of our 
stay — repaid me for all the rest. The flights of rockets 
that rose from the round mass of Sant' Angelo — the curv- 
ing lines of light, the fiery showers of sparks ! For one 
brief hour I lived. I danced and shrieked — I was myself. 
Can one shriek here ? Can one dance here ? No, no, 
no ; one may mope here and mend one's children's frocks. 

The Doctor. As you say, madam, you may recall the 
beauties of nature. You have beheld the Mediterranean, 
the Alps, the Bay of Naples, the Blue Grotto . . . 

Hilda. Naples — it was a weary wilderness. The Blue 
Grotto — it froze my marrow. There was really nothing 
— except Pompeii and Vesuvius. Ah, Vesuvius] — what 
an experience! To tiptoe over half-cold lava crusts — to 
choke amidst the fumes of sulphur! To stand on the brink 
of the crater, enjoying the smoke, the rumblings, the showers 



NORTHERN LIGHTS 



147 



of red hot stones ! On the edge of the great crater stood 
a little one, hardly taller than a child ; mother and baby ! 
And the little one fumed and sputtered and threw up its 
tiny hot pebbles — all just like its elder. It was charming 
— fascinating! 

[Two children burst suddenly into the room. A Nurse 
follows.] 

Hilda. Ah, Grethe! Ah, Eric! Come to mamma; 
stand at mamma's knee. Love mamma before these 
strange gentlemen. — Why, what is it I smell ? Whose 
clothes have been burning ? 

Eric {in a nervous fright). Mine, mamma. 

Hilda. Dear me, dear me ! — this poor little tunic all 
scorched round the hem ! And what are these marks on 
your wrists ? 

Eric. Ropes, mamma. 

Grethe. I had to tie him, mamma ; he would n't stand 
still. 

The Nurse. Please, ma'am, I found him fastened to the 
plane-tree in the garden, with a lot of chips heaped up 
round his feet. 

Grethe. He was a martyr, mamma. I was just about 
burning him alive, but he broke away. 

Hilda. For shame, Eric ! Why could n't you have 
played prettily with your sister ? 

Eric {with a frightened sob). I did, mamma; I — 

The Nurse. Indeed he did, ma'am. He stood there 
like a little lamb, until — 

Hilda. I know his sullen fits. And these absurd and 
annoying panics. Come, my poor Grethe, you and 
mamma will build a nice little fire of our own right here 



i 4 8 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

on the corner of the hearthstone, and nobody shall put it 
out, either. {To the Doctor.) I remember our last town 
fete, and how they extinguished the bonfire in the street 
before it had half burned itself out. Oh, that water! — 
it saddened me; it half sickened me. {She starts a small 
fire at the corner of the hearthstone.) We often do this. 
Oscar does n't like it, but we do it. Ah, my dears, how 
nicely it blazes ! There, naughty Eric, you don't deserve 
all this kindness from good mamma, do you ? But she 
forgives you, so don't be sulky and sullen. What ! do 
you throw yourself on the floor ? do you clutch at your 
own windpipe ? Oh, fie ! 

The Pastor. There is no danger here? 

Hilda. Not a particle. You are thinking of our last 
Christmas tree. Well, we put it out, didn't we ? 

The Doctor. Pardon me, madam : but this abnor- 
mal . . . 

Hilda. Abnormal dullness ? I fear you are right. 
Oscar does so little to entertain us. We must do what we 
can to entertain ourselves. Martyrs at the stake! — a de- 
liriously absurd idea, wasn't it? — There, my dears, you 
may watch the little fire a moment longer, and then you 
may go up stairs with Elspeth. 

Grethe. Oh, no, mamma ! 

Hilda. Well, then, just one more grand flare. What 
shall we burn? — let me see. Ah, to be sure! Run. Eric; 
bring me some of those sheets on papa's desk. Yes, from 
that thick pile; he can spare us a few as well as not. 
That 's right ; rumple them, crumple them. What a beau- 
tiful little blaze!— The rest of them? oh. throw them 
into the fireplace. — And new that 's all. Go with Els- 
peth, ui\ dears \ Elspeth will find something to amuse you, 

[The N i rse starts to leave, with the two children.] 



NORTHERN LIGHTS 149 

Hilda. My Grethe is so clever. No sooner do I read 
her a page from the Book of Martyrs than she puts it into 
practice. Eric is so different. I often wonder that two 
children so dissimilar should be the offspring of the same 
mother. Yet he and I are alike in some things. I have 
yawned at weddings, and often I am bored to desperation 
at the play. Oscar, now, is always about the same ; what 
could be more irritating ? There are days when he and 
his work and his quiet (he must have quiet) almost drive 
me to frenzy. — Oh, Elspeth ; before you leave, just light 
the lamp. 

The Pastor. My dear Hilda, there still remains a good 
half hour of daylight. [Elspeth lights the lamp.] 

Hilda. I know, I know. But the flame shines so beau- 
tifully through the red shade. 

[Elspeth and the children go out.] 

The Doctor. I fear we must be withdrawing . . . You 
will convey my best respects to your husband . . . 

Hilda. Don't go just yet; the lamp is only my whim. 
You must not leave without meeting Oscar; he will be 
along presently. Don't go — you have hardly bored me 
at all. Besides, I have something to say to you. 

The Pastor. Shall / go, Hilda ? 

Hilda. Never mind. I shall not say that you have 
not bored me, but as you are here you may as well stay on. 

The Doctor. You have something to say to me ? 

Hilda. About myself, yes. I mean to be thoroughly 
individual ; I will talk about myself. 

The Pastor. That is a good beginning. 

Hilda (to the Doctor). You have heard my remarks 
about Oscar and the children and our life here. Now I 
am going to tell you something else. What could be more 
original, more individual, than to bestow confidences upon 
a complete stranger ? 



150 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Doctor. You have my best attention. 

Hilda. Well, then, what I have to tell you is this: I 
don't know who I am. 

The Pastor. You will yet find your true self. 

Hilda. Nonsense I — I don't mean that. I mean I 
don't know my real name — I don't know who my parents 
were. I may suspect — I may have taken steps to learn ; 
but I don't know. 

The Pastor. You are the daughter of Councilor Stock- 
raann — everybody knows that. 

Hilda. Everybody professes to know that. But such 
is by no means the real truth. The Councilor adopted 
me, and there the matter has rested, without comment or 
inquiry. I certainly passed my childhood at the Coun- 
cilor's — a much livelier house than this, by the way — 
but I remember an earlier home and a different one. I 
think I left it suddenly one night. I think it was in flames. 
Oscar has gone to find out. 

The Doctor. Your husband has gone to find out ? 

Hilda. I mean that he has gone into town for the 
day's mail. He will bring me back some books and pa- 
pers, I think, that will help to clear matters up ; I wrote 
for them a week ago. I believe we should try to under- 
stand things and ourselves and one another. 

The Pastor. Genealogy is worthy of our best attention. 

The Doctor. And heredity too. 

Hilda. Heredity, — precisely. You might think Grethe 
the last of a long line of inquisitors — or of incendiaries, 
and Eric the son of a — well, of a sentinel driven desperate 
by an endless succession of interminable guard-mounts and 
(if a nun toned into moping melancholy by the tedium of 
the cloister. How will the coming generation end? Do 
you prophesy a quiet lapse into Nirvana or a sudden 



NORTHERN LIGHTS 



catastrophe with all the trappings of tragedy ? I shall at- 
tempt to decide as soon as Oscar arrives with my docu- 
ments. (She looks out into the garden) Here he comes 
at last, and he has my packets too. He does n't know 
what they are ; besides, he is thinking about his own do- 
ings. (She lights another cigarette.) Now you are going 
to hear all about the Civilization of the Etruscans. 

[Enter Holme, a grave, self-contained young man, with 
several parcels.] 

Hilda. Oscar, you know the Pastor, and he will make 
you acquainted with our new neighbor, Doctor Kjoldmann. 
You might have come sooner. You have some books for 
me, and letters, and documents; let me take them. Gen- 
tlemen, I leave you. I am meaning henceforth to do 
largely as I please, and it is necessary for me to learn, as 
a beginning, how far I can go. (She passes out.) 

Oscar. Excuse, gentlemen, my delayed return. Yet I 
apprehend your welcome to have been a warm one : this 
fire, this lamp; even my wife's . . . (He pulls a bell-cord; 
Elspeth appears.) Scatter the fire, Elspeth; open the 
window and draw wide the curtains ; put out the lamp — 
no, let that remain as it is; the darkness is overtaking us — 
I see the first stars. So. — And where are the children? 

The Nurse. They are playing in the nursery. 

Oscar. They are in no mischief? 

The Nurse. I think not, sir. 

Oscar. Very well. (The Nurse goes.) Even my wife, 
as I was saying . . . 

The Pastor. My dear Oscar, believe that her reception 
of us was all that it should have been. I have seldom 
seen her more sprightly, more — ah-um . . . 



IS 2 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

Oscar. You relieve me. To rescue her from the gulf 
of black despondency into which she is sure to find herself 
plunged after one of her inexplicable nervous crises . . . 
(To the Doctor.) You will pardon these domestic de- 
tails? . . . 

The Doctor. Assuredly. 

Oscar. I sometimes believe that we are too quiet here, 
too absorbed in ourselves. I think now and then of a 
change — Italy again. (To the Doctor.) Does n't it 
seem to you that . . . ? 

The Doctor. I am hardly prepared to advise . . 

Oscar. True — not yet, not now. But sometime I may 
be glad to have your opinion on . . . 

The Doctor. At your service, I am sure. 

Oscar. Italy — yes. My first book, The Memories of 
the Cattegat, made our Italian trip possible. My second, 
From Praestoe to Palermo, built this house. A feat, you 
think ? By no means. Two or three thousand copies 
selling at two or three crowns, and then the villa — what 
could be simpler, or commoner ? My third book (glancing 
toward desk), The Etruscan Civilization, may pay our way 
across the Alps once more. — Oh, fie ! what a smudge Els- 
peth has raised ! The whole house might be thought to 
be filled with smoke ! 

[He opens the window still wider, and draws the cur- 
tains yet farther apart. From the horizon-line of the sea 
the Aurora Borealis streams and quivers in the deepening 
blue of the evening sky.] 

Oscar. Hilda was always my inspiration. My first 
book was written during my courtship, and sometimes she 
held the pens. The second was planned during our honey- 



NORTHERN LIGHTS 



■53 



moon. No book, my dear Doctor, can be written with- 
out feminine inspiration — that is the invariable rule. 

The Doctor. And your new work — has it been long 
under way ? 

Oscar. Three years. I have done it largely alone. 
{Quickly.) It calls for less inspiration, but for more re- 
search, more industry. Yes, three years of close thought 
and application. {He glances toward his desk with an im- 
patience but half concealed.) 

The Pastor. Night is falling. We will take our leave. 

The Doctor. With our best wishes for the prosperity 
of you and yours. 

[They go out. As they leave by one door, enter Hilda 
by another. She has an open letter in one hand and a 
book in the other.] 

Hilda. The whole thing is as clear as day — and sub- 
stantially what I have long supposed. It seems that my 
grandfather — They have gone, have they ? 

Oscar. One moment, Hilda. What is the meaning of 
this outrageous fire, and of these charred papers on the 
hearth, and of the cigarette you had between your teeth as 
I came in? You know my objection to your smoking 
even in private, while to smoke before strangers — 

Hilda {with a staccato-like coldness). Listen, Oscar. 
Henceforth you will take a different tone with me. I know 
at last just who I am. I shall be hectored and browbeaten 
no longer. From now on, you will bear this in mind : that 
my great-grandfather was an historical character, and that 
my grandmother on the other side — 

Oscar. I have known all this from the beginning. 



I54 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

Hilda. You have known all this from the beginning! 
Then your lack of deference is quite inexplicable. 

Oscar. Indeed? 

Hilda. Have a care, Oscar; I give you fair warning. 
Remember that my father's grandfather never sat at home 
writing miserable books. No ; he was a leader of men. 
How many of these valleys did he devastate with fire and 
sword ! How many villages and farmhouses went up in 
flames as he and his soldiers swept by ! How many times 
the sky was reddened with — ! 

Oscar. I should make no boast of that. 

Hilda. Then recall my grandmother, the sainted Lady 
of Lindegaard, who founded a lay sisterhood and passed a 
long widowhood in fasts and prayers and contempla- 
tions . . . 

Oscar. There are better things than that to do. 

Hilda. What better things ? To dabble in an ink-pot ? 
To snow one's self under, leaf by leaf, with endless manu- 
scripts ? Oscar, you never married me; you married that 
desk. Grethe and Eric are not your children ; your chil- 
dren are the Cattegat and the — the ancient Etruscans ! 

Oscar. My children are worthier of boast than your 
forebears. Hear me: your grandfather was apprehended 
for arson; he burnt his neighbors' houses — one night he- 
even burnt his own. Over the very heads of his family. 
On that night your own life was barely saved. 

Hilda. Ah ! 

Oscar. And now, your sainted grandmother. Totally 
misunderstanding her own nature, she drove herself mad 
b) a long life of puritanical futilities, and was more than 
half suspected of having done herself to death in the mill- 
pond. 

Hilda. And you have never mentioned these things 
before ? 



NORTHERN LIGHTS 155 

Oscar. Are they things one would willingly recall ? 

Hilda {meditatively). Well, then, there are two ways 
open to me. But I shall never go to the mill-pond. That 
would be too wet. 

Oscar. What are you saying, Hilda? 

Hilda. Only this : I shall do something, sometime, Os- 
car. That would be the only end for a long life with you 
— the man who set his bride of a fortnight to measuring 
Etruscan tombs ! — Pah ! this smoke is thick — beyond all 
reason. {She steps to the window . The Northern Lights 
flaunt brilliantly above the sea.) Ah, see them, see them, — 
the only thing that reconciles me to life in this odious 
corner. They are a part of me, and I of them. They are 
the brands wielded by my ancestors of a hundred genera- 
tions ago. The great gods have bestirred themselves, and 
they are setting the world afire. You will never set the 
world afire, Oscar! 

Oscar {who, heedless of Hilda's words, has turned his 
attefition to his manuscripts). Who has been at this desk ? 
Who has been among my papers ? 

Hilda {leaving the window). Is anything amiss ? 

Oscar. I miss a hundred sheets or more. What has 
been done with them ? What are those charred papers 
upon the hearth-stone ? 

Hilda. We built a little fire there — the children and I. 

Oscar. Why ? ( With a nervous dread.) Fire, fire, al- 
ways fire ! 

Hilda. Why ? For our own pleasure. I 'm sure we 
have little enough. 

Oscar. Built a fire ? With what ? 

Hilda. Just with some loose papers from your desk. 
Were they of any value ? 

Oscar. Of any value ? Woman, woman, what have 



156 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

you done ? My last and greatest work — three years of 
thought and study — reduced to a handful of ashes ! You 
are indeed your grandfather's — Leave me, leave me! Out 
of my sight ! 

Hilda. Have a care, Oscar. I warn you. I am his 
grandchild — I shall not go to the mill-pond! {She ad- 
vances toward the fireplace and begins to scatter the red em- 
bers over the hearth-rug a fid the fioor.) 

Oscar. Stop, stop ! Are you mad ? — mad with the 
madness of your race ! 

[Reenter, in breathless haste, the Pastor and the 
Doctor.] 

The Pastor. Pardon me ; something is much amiss. 

The Doctor. Smoke is issuing through your roof; a red 
glare shines through all your upper windows ! 

The Pastor. We saw it from the roadway, just as we 
were turning the last corner. 

Hilda. And the Aurora — did you notice that, as well ? 
When has it ever been more brilliant ? When has it ever 
streamed up more magnificently ? Oh, if there were but 
a torch in my hand too ! 

[Enter, hastily, the Nurse.] 

The Nurse. Oh, master, master! The house is burn- 
ing ! The children must have built a fire upon the nursery 
floor! 

Oscar. Must have ? Must have ? What do you mean ? 
Have you deserted them? Come, cornel [He rushes 

frantically toward the doorway.) 

The Nurse. Their door was fastened. I heard them 
screaming. 



NORTHERN LIGHTS IS7 

Oscar. Oh, heavens ! 

Hilda {with a shriek of triumph). Ha ! What did I 
tell you ? They were not your children, but mine — they 
would not go to the mill-pond either ! — A torch, a torch — 
I would give the world for a torch ! {She crosses over to 
the lamp.) Give me two — one for each hand ! Give me 
twenty — give me a hundred! {She seizes the lamp.) 
Wait, Oscar. — You have never seen me lovelier. You 
have never appreciated me — you have thought only of 
that desk. And now it is too late — I am forever beyond 
your reach. {To the Pastor and the Doctor.) Go, you 
wretched prosers, go; it is you and your likes that have 
helped to drive me upon my fate! {They move toward 
the doorway.) And — now ! 

[She swings the lamp in a fiery circle round her head, 
then hurls it violently into the midst of her husband's desk, 
where it explodes. In an instant the room, with every- 
thing in it, is flecked and spotted with a spray of blazing 
oil. At the same time, flames burst through the ceiling.] 

Hilda {on fire, as she runs round and round the room). 
Life is too dull to live ; this is the only true way to die ! 

[The room fills with thick smoke, and the fate of the 
remaining personages is left altogether to surmise.] 



THE STORY- SPINNER 



THE STORY-SPINNER. 



PERSONS. 

The Wayfarer. The Bridegroom. 

The Bride. His Parents. 

Her Parents. His Uncle. 

Her Grandmother. Many guests, servitors, musi- 

An Old Nurse. cians, etc. 

The pleasance in front of the manor-house of Belcaro. 
It is laid out upon a hillside and affords a view, over some 
miles of undulating olive groves, of the towers of a medie- 
val Tuscan town and of the mountains beyond and round 
about it. Immediately adjoining this boxed and laureled 
pleasure-ground is the doorway of a Romanesque chapel. 
A bell is ringing. — Present: the Nurse and the Wayfarer. 



The Nurse. I cannot conceive why I should be speak- 
ing so freely of these things to you — to you, an utter 
stranger. 

The Wayfarer. I enjoy such confidences, believe me. 
They are more grateful to me than the plentiful cheer of 
the servants' quarters or even the lordly dishes of the great 
banquet-hall itself. 

The Nurse. I have never spoken of these matters to a 

ii 161 



162 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

human soul before. I feel that I should have spoken ear- 
lier, or not at all. 

The Wayfarer. Continue freely. What you say adds 
nothing to my burden, yet lightens yours. What is one 
more little tale to a man who has lived so long, traveled so 
far and heard so much ? 

The Nurse. What prompts me to tell you all so freely ? 
It is not your gray hair — for mine is as gray as yours. It 
is not your commanding mien — for tall and self-willed men 
have never been strangers in this house. Is it perchance 
your eye ? It glitters with the knowledge of many things 
far, far beyond my ken, and its questionings call forth an- 
swers that may not be withheld. 

The Wayfarer. Go on. 

The Nurse. I have no choice. — The loss of the first 
child could bring me no single jot of blame ; the loss of the 
second, so soon after the disappearance of the other, might 
well have been my ruin. The boy — Belcaro's heir though 
he be — was no charge of mine; the girl was, and in the 
strictest sense. That the boy should have been carried off 
by bandits and that he should have disappeared so sud- 
denly and so completely from among them upon the very 
day that the ransom was ready to be paid — all this grieved 
me, for he was a beautiful child and the sole heir of our 
house. But my skirts were clear — my hands were clean. 
Yet, when — 

The Wayfarer. When, a year later, their infant daugh- 
ter was lost as well . . . 

The Nurse. I was to blame. Yet if ever there were 
excuse . . . ! This house was attacked at night We 
fled — the chances of war. The babe and I were sepa- 
rated from its parents. 1 plunged frantically into the 
wood, with that week-old child; all was dark. save for our 



THE STORY- SPINNER 163 

burning roofs. I hid the child and sought long for food 
and shelter. These I found at length — but the child, 
never. I groped my way back toward her — I searched 
vainly for the spot. I saw her no more; I did not see 
her parents for a year. Then the wars were over; our 
household was once more gathered together. I returned, 
too. And I brought a child with me. 

The Wayfarer. What child ? 

The Nurse. One that I begged from a band of gipsies 

— one that they had stolen, doubtless. 

The Wayfarer {thoughtfully). This is most promising 

— most promising. — And the other child ? Nothing was 
ever heard of it ? 

The Nurse. By me alone. Years after. A baby's skel- 
eton, found where I could not find the baby itself. 

The Wayfarer. So that the girl who is to be married 
to-day is not the daughter of her reputed parents ? 

The Nurse. No more than the youth who is to marry 
her is the son of his reputed parents. 

The Wayfarer. Not their son ? Not the heir of Mon- 
tegrifone ? 

The Nurse. Only by adoption, I am told. The master 
of Montegrifone (you see his walls across the valley) had 
lately lost all his children through the plague. He re- 
sorted to the monastery of which one of his brothers was 
the head (you see its roofs upon the mountain-slope above), 
where he found a young boy lodged for the time being. 
The boy was handsome and clever and the lonely father 
adopted him for his own. That was years ago, and for 
his own he passes. You follow all this ? 

The Wayfarer. Readily. I see the most striking pos- 
sibilities here. Proceed — proceed ! 

The Nurse. Proceed ? Have I not said enough ? That 



lS^ THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

night in the forest — the loss of my charge — that year of 
remorseful wanderings — that bartering with the gipsy band 
— the odious and lasting lies that followed my return — 
the finding, years after, of those little bones — the death 
of all those other innocents from the pestilence — Is not 
that enough ? Are you insatiable ? 

The Wayfarer. I am fond of a good story — that is all. 

The Nurse. A good story! — have you no more than 
that to say ? You are unfeeling. You are inhuman. I 
hold no further speech with you ! 

The Wayfarer. Go on ; you interest me deeply. It is 
upon such things as these that I live. 

The Nurse. I have no more to tell you. The rest you 
must see for yourself. 

The Wayfarer. Is it true that these two families have 
been enemies for many generations ? 

The Nurse. Judge from their actions as they come to 
chapel. 

The Wayfarer. Is it true that the bride's grandmother 
is still opposed to this marriage ? 

The Nurse. She has not forgotten the murder of her 
husband. 

The Wayfarer. Is it not a fact that the uncles of the 
bridegroom — ? 

The Nurse. They were balked in their attempt to hold 
this place as their own. 

The Wayfarer. And is it not certain that — ? 
The Nurse. Cease, cease, I pray you. There is more 
knowledge in your questions than in my answers even. 
1 have told you too much ; I have spoken far too freely. 
Who are you ? 

The Wayfarer. One who is fond of a good story — 
nothing more. 



THE STORY- SPINNER 165 

[The Bridal Party appears, accompanied by guests, mu- 
sicians and the retainers of the castle, and moves along 
slowly toward the door of the Chapel] 

The Bride's Father (to the Groom's Father). It is 
on such a day as this that I most envy you; it is on such 
a day that you should most sympathize with me. Save 
for the foray of those accursed freebooters I too should 
have a son to-day to follow me in good time and to serve 
as the future mainstay of my house. 

The Groom's Father. Believe me when I say that no 
less do I envy you your daughter. We take her to-day 
because we are entitled to her; she will replace the baby 
girl that the gipsies spirited away from us so many years 
ago : a moment's inadvertence — rued so long and never 
recompensed till now. 

The Bride's Father. Yes, I remember. We were fel- 
lows in misfortune. 

The Wayfarer (to the Nurse). Did you know this ? 
Why did you withhold it? Did you not know that the 
daughter of Montegrifone had been stolen by a gipsy 
band? 

The Nurse. I profess neither knowledge nor ignorance. 
I have said too much. 

The Wayfarer. You have kept back essential facts, 
vital facts. You have not said enough. 

The Nurse. I am under no obligation to disclose them. 

The Wayfarer. I shall know how to punish you. 

The Nurse. Ha ! will you break your word ? — But 
what, man, is all this to you ? Why do your eyes glow ? 
Why does your breath quicken ? Why do you tug so at 
your interlocking fingers ? 

The Wayfarer. I am one who is fond of a good story. 



166 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

And I am always on the side of youth and love and 

beauty. 

[The Bridal Procession has reached the entrance of the 
Chapel. As it is about to pass through, the Bride's 
Grandmother appears from within. J 

The Bride's Grandmother. Hold! I cannot find it 
in me to let this thing go farther. 

The Bride's Father. I beg, mother, that you will no 
longer oppose. The past is past ; old feuds are to be for- 
gotten ; this day will wipe out all differences between Mon- 
te grifone and Belcaro. 

The Groom's Father. Madam, I say the same. This 
will be the dawn of a new day for all of us. Do nothing 
more to prevent this union. Concede that such a youth as 
this my son is well worthy of even such a maiden as your 
granddaughter. 

The Wayfarer [aside to the Nurse). He speaks truly. 
His son seems indeed a noble and gallant youth, and your 
young charge, in point of grace and beauty, appears fully 
worthy of him. My heartiest sympathies go with them 
both. 

The Bride's Grandmother. You ask too much. Am 
T to forgive your brothers' attack upon cur walls? Am 
I to forget our blazing roofs, my murdered husband ? 

The Wayfarer [stepping forward with an air of great 
dignity and authority). A word, madam. Do you not 
know that it was to this man's intercession with his bro- 
thers that you owed the preservation of your home and the 
I'mal restitution of your property ? 

The Bride's Father. Is this indeed true? 

The Groom's Father [gulping down an instinctive 



THE STORY- SPINNER j6j 

word of negation). Would such have been more than a 
mere act of justice and humanity ? 

The Bride's Father. Then, madam my mother, let us 
and our children pass. Such an act cements a lasting 
friendship. 

[The Bride's Grandmother, still unreconciled, with- 
draws into the shadow of the doorway.] 

The Nurse {aside to the Wayfarer). Is this thing true ? 
The Wayfarer. It may be. It should be. 

[A hasty step, accompanied by the clicking of armor and 
the jangling of swords, is heard. Enter the Groom's Un- 
cle, followed by several attendants.] 

The Groom's Uncle. Let this folly cease — it has gone 
too far already. We are enemies — we always have been 
— we always shall be. As such I came here once before ; 
as such I come here now. 

The Bridegroom. Peace, uncle. You can have no 
voice in this. All has been decided. The past is past . . . 

The Groom's Father. Peace, Bertuccio. Let those old 
memories die. 

The Wayfarer. Peace, indeed. Do you not under- 
stand (to the Uncle) why you find yourself free to come to 
this place to-day? Do you not sometimes wonder that 
such a career as yours should be proceeding in broad sun- 
light instead of in the darkness of the dungeon ? Recall 
the day when you were apprehended for your many acts 
of dishonor and violence. Do you know who appeared 
before the Great Council to plead your cause ? 

The Groom's Uncle. No one, I trust. I need no ad- 
vocate. 



168 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Wayfarer. You had one. It was the voice of this 
woman here {indicating the Bride's Mother) that saved 
your liberty and perhaps your life. 

The Bride's Father. Is this true, Olivia ? 

The Bride's Mother {gasping weakly, under the fixed 
gaze of the Wayfarer). He was my — Bertuccio was my 

— my cousin . . . 

The Bride's Father. Ay ! But how many times re- 
moved ! 

The Nurse [aside to the Wayfarer). Is this thing true ? 

The Wayfarer. Was it impossible ? 

The Groom's Uncle {to the Wayfarer). Who are you, 
man, thus to force so unwelcome a fact upon me ? Why 
are you here ? What motive prompts you ? 

The Wayfarer. I am but a poor plodder, my lord, along 
life's highway. It is my pleasure to view the world and 
the men and manners that make it up. To-day has brought 
its jugglers, its tumblers, its musicians, and it has brought 

— me. 

The Bridegroom. You are discordant, uncle. Tune 
yourself anew, or leave us. 

[The Bride's Grandmother suddenly reappears in the 
doorway, and sees the Groom's Uncle.] 

The Bride's Grandmother. Tnere he stands! I see 
him once again. His sword is in one hand ; why is not 
his torch in the other? It was he who urged them on; 
it was he who made me a widow; it was he who would 
have sacked and wrecked my house ! And yet you ask me 
to . . . 

The Wayfarer [to himself), My hand is now in the 



THE STORY- SPINNER x 6g 

flames, indeed ! ( To the Uncle, tvith increased dignity.) 
Listen to me. 

The Groom's Uncle. Silence ! I will not. 

The Wayfarer. You must; you shall. — Recall the 
great battle on the banks of the Ersa when all the forces 
of the state united to repel the invader. You saved a life 
that day. 

The Groom's Uncle. I took a hundred. I saved not 
one. I never saved a life. 

The Bride's Father, /saved a life that day. 

The Wayfarer {with a quick adaptation). Ay, to be 
sure. You found a warrior weighted down by his own 
armor, struggling desperately for his life amidst the mud 
and rushes of the shore — 

The Bride's Father. — and drew him up in safety 
upon firm ground. 

The Wayfarer. And his name ? His face ? 

The Bride's Father. I did not see it — his helm was 
down. But he was one of our men. 

The Groom's Father {to the Uncle). You were thus 
saved that day, Bertuccio. Later I saw you fighting, be- 
slimed from head to foot. 

The Wayfarer {instantly seizing the advantage). You 
were that man. 

The Groom's Uncle. I deny it ! They beg for my 
liberty, they give me my life, they force their friendship 
upon me — ! I will not endure it! 

The Nurse {to the Wayfarer). Is this thing true ? 

The Wayfarer. It is possible. Men have been drowned 
in their armor; men have been saved in a hurly-burly 
without either recognition or thanks. 

The Bride's Grandmother {to her son). A worthy 
deed ! The next time raise the visor ! 



r- 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Wayfarer {to the Groom's Uncle). Let me try 
once more. — Recall the great flood of the following year. 
At twilight the town bridge was broken down and swept 
away. It was crowded with human beings — many women 
among them. Did you leave those poor creatures to save 
themselves ? 

The Groom's Uncle {reluctantly). I rescued two or 
three. 

The Bride. Among them was — I. With a hundred 
others I fell into the rushing torrent. A strong swimmer 
seized me and bore me to the shore. It was too dark to 
see his face. He gave me no time to thank him, but 
straightway plunged into the flood to save another unfor- 
tunate. 

The Wayfarer {pointing to the Groom's Uncle). 
There stands your savior. 

The Groom's Uncle. Man, man, you will drive me mad ! 

The Nurse {to the Wayfarer). Is this thing true ? 

The Wayfarer. Why do you doubt ? Many risked 
their lives that night ; many poor souls were saved. 

The Groom's Uxcle. I will not acknowledge that I 
saved his daughter's life. Nor will I acknowledge that he 
himself saved mine ! 

The Bride's Grandmother. Nor will I acknowledge 
that your brothers' intercession saved my lite and lands, or 
that the pleadings of my daughter-in-law saved you from 
many lingering years of chains and dungeons. I know 
why you were caught floundering in the river : you were 
crossing over to the enemy, and you richly deserved to 
drown — or worse. 

The Groom's Father. Madam, you go too far. You 
may accuse my brother of much — and truly; but you 
shall not breathe of treachery 011 the field of battle. 



THE STORY- SPINNER 



71 



The Bridegroom. You have gone too far indeed. Mon- 
tegrifone shelters no traitor. That word strikes not only 
at my uncle ; it strikes at my father, and at me. Until it 
is withdrawn I cannot pass that door. 

The Bride. You, Gerardo, who have been so calm and 
reasonable throughout ! You, whose kin my father saved 
from death and my mother from prison . . . 

The Groom's Uncle. I deny it ! I deny it. Tell me, 
woman (to the Bride's Mother), did you ever make plea 
for me before the Great Council ? Answer me truly. 

The Bride's Mother (feebly). N — no. 

The Groom's Uncle. Ha ! There you have it ! 

The Groom's Mother. No more, then, did your hus- 
band save Bertuccio's life. 

The Bride's Grandmother. See, Ruggiero ! What do 
they give you ? — thanks — or the lie ? 

The Groom's Father. You accuse us of treachery, of 
falsehood ? 

The Bride's Father. Of both; of worse. Of vio- 
lence, of injustice, of — 

The Groom's Father (to the Bridegroom). Leave 
that girl's side. 

The Bridegroom. Do I need the word ? 

The Bride's Father (to the Bride). Drop that man's 
hand. 

The Bride. Have I not the pride of our house ? 

The Nurse (to the Wayfarer). The fault is yours. 
You have gone too far; you have said too much. 

The Wayfarer. I shall go much farther. I shall say 
much more. 

The Groom's Uncle (to the Bride's Father). Draw 
and defend yourself. 

The Bride's Father. You find me ready. 



172 



THE PUPPHT-BOOTH 



[The Chapel bell goes on ringing. Two acolytes, sent 
to learn the reason lor delay, stand upon the threshold in 
an attitude of amazed protest. More of the men draw 
their swords, and a general combat seems imminent, when 
the Wayfarer, his eye rolling in a fine frenzy, and his 
carriage full of dignity and authority, advances into the 
midst of the group.] 

The Wayfarer. Hold ! You are all groping in the 
darkness. Let me illumine it — that is my office. I can- 
not brook to see the happiness of this young couple wrecked 
by the blind folly of their elders. I ever side with youth 
and hope and beauty and courtesy and love ; such are the 
things I live upon. 

The Groom's Uncle. You are a foolish meddler. Stand 
aside. 

The Wayfarer. I must needs meddle where others 
muddle. 

The Bride's Father. You are a stranger. Let your 
discretion match with your ignorance. 

The Wayfarer. A stranger — yes; ignorant — no. I 
tread the highways of the world ; at times I wander through 
the byways as well. Give me your hand and I will lead 
you through them too. You lost a son ? 

The Bride's Father. Years ago. 

The Wayfarer. A band of robbers carried him oft". 
{To Groom's Father.) You adopted a son? 

The Groom's Father. Years ago, — a bright boy who 
had found temporary lodgment in a monastery where 1 
had a family interest. 

The W \\ i vrer. Well and good. The boy was brought 

there by one of the monks. The monk had received him 
at the hands of a robber chief. The robber, dying, con- 
fessed to the monk that the boy, the son of noble parents. 



THE STORY-SPINNER 



173 



had been stolen away by his own band. I was lodging in 
the monastery when the monk and his young charge ar- 
rived. I know that youth's whole history. He stands this 
moment between you, and he is the heir not of Montegri- 
fone but of Belcaro — not your son, but yours. 

The Nurse {pointedly, to the Wayfarer). You were 
lodging in that monastery ? 

The Wayfarer {sternly). I was. Do not doubt it. 

The Bridegroom. What ! Shall I be made the brother 

of . ; . ? 

The Wayfarer. No, {To Groom's Father.) I rob 
you of a son — a son by adoption. I replace him by a 
daughter — a daughter of your own flesh and blood. Re- 
call that baby girl who was stolen by a band of gypsies. 
I knew them and their camp. One night a guilty nurse, 
who had lost the infant committed to her care, came to 
that camp and bargained for a child. The lost child was 
Belcaro's, and the child substituted for it was yours. 

The Nurse {to the Wayfarer). You were dwelling in 
that gipsy camp ? 

The Wayfarer {menacingly). I was. Do not ques- 
tion it. 

The Bride. What ! Must I believe myself the daugh- 
ter of ... ? 

The Wayfarer {in a fine glow of exaltation). Now you 
know all. Well and good. Let the church-door close ; 
let the bridal procession turn back ; do what you may, undo 
what you can. But these facts remain : for twenty years 
and more, you {to Montegrifone) have fed and lodged 
and instructed Belcaro's son ; and for twenty years or less 
you {to Belcaro) have cherished and protected Monte- 
grifone's daughter. What can either of you do now that 
will undo all this ? [A pause. 

The Bride's Father. The bell is still ringing. 



74 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Groom's Father. The door is still open. 

The Bride's Grandmother. I no longer oppose. 

The Groom's Uncle. I willingly submit. 

The Bridegroom. These varying heirships shall blend. 

The Bride. These perplexing parentages must fuse. 

The Bride's Mother {to the Wayfarer). Pray join us 
in our festivities. 

The Groom's Mother {to her husband). Such services 
as these must not be allowed to go unrecompensed. 

The Wayfarer. The bell is ringing ; the door is open ; 
the priest is waiting. Pass in, pass in ! 

[The Bridal Procession enters the chapel. There re- 
main outside only the Wayfarer and the Nurse.] 

The Nurse {after a long pause). Who are you ? 

The Wayfarer. A poor plodder along life's highway. 
One whose pleasure it is to view the passing show — and 
to direct it, when such seems fit. 

The Nurse. You have done great things to-day. 

The Wayfarer. I have done greater. It is my office 
to smooth the rough places, to untangle the tangled 
skein. 

The Nurse. What do you call yourself? 

The Wayfarer. A fiction-monger — a story-spinner. 
I work in words when 1 must, but in deeds when I may ; 
by tongue or pen when nothing better offers, in human 
heart-beats when the chance but comes my way. 

The Nurse. You are leaving ? You will not wait to 
see the bride come forth from the chapel ? 

The Wayfarer. My task here is finished. 

The Nurse. You will not tarry to take your place in the 
banquet hall? — right bravel) have you earned it! 



THE STORY- SPINNER 175 

The Wayfarer. The world is wide and other tasks 
await me in it. 

The Nurse. But before you go, one word. 

The Wayfarer. What is it ? 

The Nurse. All these things, — are they — are they — 
true ? 

The Wayfarer. They may be. They ought to be. — 
Farewell. [He goes. 



THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES 



THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES 

PERSONS. 

The Stranger. The Count of Habichts- 

The Host of the Golden burg. 
Owl. (He is also Bur- His Niece, 
gomaster.) The Watchman. 

His Daughter. His Wife. 

Various Townspeople; among them: the Schoolmas- 
ter, the Priest, the Master-builder. Servants, 
Men-at-arms, etc. 

A little square just within the gate of the town of Ha- 
bichtsburg. On the right, the castle, which incorporates a 
portion of the town walls. On the left, the inn of the Owl. 
Opposite it, a fountain which half hides the entrance to the 
church. At a table under the great linden-tree before the 
inn are discovered the Stranger, the Host, the School- 
master and various townspeople. Sunset; the sun shines 
through the town gate. 



The Stranger {to the Schoolmaster). What you say 
interests me deeply ; — me, one who is in no wise given to 
reflection. 

The Schoolmaster. I had hardly thought to produce 
so great an impression. What I have said can scarce be 
i 79 



^o THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

called novel ; — it is not, indeed, my office to deal in 
novelties. 

The Stranger. You have not offered novelties. I have 
met all these ideas more than once before. But it is only 
the twentieth presentation that can make me think. 1 find 
again, then, some thousand souls dwelling in intimacy — in 
close space and with close interests. A permanent inti- 
macy, too, as I understand, and one governed by various 
small rules and regulations that are in some degree of your 
own contriving. I myself am a person of action, and 
nothing else; yet when I encounter such conditions for 
the twentieth, the fiftieth, the hundredth time, it almost 
gives me food for thought. 

The Watchman. There are a hundred towns like this? 

The Stranger. Possibly, my good fellow ; possibly. I 
myself have seen ten or twelve such — I will not go so high 
as twenty twice. 

The Host of the Owl Which of the twenty is yours ? 

The Stranger. Which of them is mine? This; decid- 
edly, this. 

The Host. This? You are not enrolled here; you are 
not known here — not a soul of us has ever seen your face 
before. 

The Stranger. Denied welcome even here ? Then am 
I homeless indeed. Will you not make me one of your- 
selves for a single night ? 

The Priest. That were but charity. 

The Stranger. One night — no more: one will be 
quite enough. For. if you toll me truly, lite here is too be- 
set by restrictions for comfort — to say nothing of pleasure. 
One may not lie al liberty, for example, to kiss his neigh- 
bor's \\ ife or daughter ? 

The 1 Cost. 1 should like to see a man ki>s my daughter I 



THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES 181 

The Watchman. I should like to catch a man kissing 
my wife ! 

The Stranger (to the Host's Daughter, who conies 
with a fresh flagon). Thank your stars, my child, that you 
are so well protected. I shall have to look elsewhere. (He 
casts up his eye and sees a young woman at a window above 
the town-gate.) Toward you, my dear. (He throws a kiss 
aloft.) 

The Watchman. Have a care, young sir. That is my 
wife! 

The Stranger. That lovely young creature your wife ? 
Who could have guessed it ! ( The young woman blushes, 
smiles and retires.) 

The Watchman. There is now no need to guess ; you 
know. 

The Stranger. Thanks for the assurance, graybeard. 
— No endearments, then, are permitted. No more is one 
at liberty, I suppose, to put his hand into his neighbor's 
pocket ? 

The Host, I should like to see any one put his hand 
into my pocket ! 

The Master-builder. I should like to catch any one 
putting his fingers on my purse ! 

The Host's Daughter (to the Stranger, at a sigtifro?n 
her father). Your reckoning, sir. 

The Stranger (carelessly). Presently, presently, my 
dear child. 

The Host. At once, if you please. 

The Stranger. Your poor pocket! — button it, button 
it ; lock the stable door ! 

The Host. You will not pay? 

The Stranger. We shall reach that point in due time. 
One is not free, then, to filch. No more may one draw 



x 8 2 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

his blade, I conceive, to end an objectionable and super- 
fluous life ? {The Host shrinks back.) 

The Watchman. I should like to see anyone draw 
against — {He pauses as he perceives his own pike dandled 
carelessly between the Stranger's knees.) 

The Stranger. Oh, take it, take it — by all means! — 
Then I may not run you through and through, I may not 
hamstring you, I may not even pink you ? No more 
would you allow me, I fancy, the right to lay the torch to 
yonder door. {He points across toward the entrance to the 
castle.) 

The Schoolmaster. What thoughts are yours ! 

The Priest. No one here dreams of so wicked a deed. 

The Host. Such an assault upon the sacred rights of 
property ! 

The Watchman. Such an affront to law ! Such an 
attack upon life ! 

The Master-builder! Could you destroy in a moment 
of frenzy the thought of so many minds and the skill of so 
many hands through so many laborious years ? 

The Gardener. Take, rather, my axe, and wreck in one 
hour the work of centuries by laying low the ancient linden 
under whose shade we rest. 

The Stranger. What, are you all so cramped and 
stiffened in your chains ? Nothing for you save restric- 
tions . . . repressions . . . ? 

The Schoolmaster. We obey the laws. 

The Stranger. Mere habit — mere inertia ; the numbing 
custom of generations. 

The Priest. But the bonds of conscience . . . the ordi- 
nances of religion . . . 

The Stranger. Religion! — the special coloi cast by 
each age and race upon a matter that begins in \o^ and 
ends in conjecture ! 



THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES 183 

The Host. The ties of family . . . 

The Stranger. O, la, la ! What individual, left to his 
own devices, would ever hit upon matrimony and follow it 
in practice ? 

The Watchman. The rights of property, the security 
of— 

The Stranger. Tush ! What property has the lion, the 
tomtit ? Each takes whatever he needs wherever he finds 
it. — But on these points are you unanimous? Do you all 
obey ? Do you all conform ? Do you all observe the 
rules of the game ? 

The Priest. All. 

The Schoolmaster. All. 

The Stranger {pointing toward the castle). All — abso- 
lutely all ? [A pause.) Ah, no answer ! — Hark, hark ! I 
think the answer comes. 

[Approaching sounds of rumbling wheels and galloping 
hoofs. The carriage of the Count, preceded by outriders 
and involved in a great cloud of luminous dust, comes 
dashing into town through the gateway. The towns- 
people, whose seats border closely upon the public space, 
hastily start up and draw back. The Stranger rises also, 
but holds his ground.] 

The Host [choking in the dust). Have a care! Step 
back! 

The Stranger [standing with one foot upon his stool, 
which he has not moved). Ha, burgomaster ! I reject 
your advice, as he ignores your authority. I will take care 
of myself. 

[The carriage comes on, with every promise of grazing 
the Stranger's legs. With his foot he tilts the stool against 



184 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

one of the forewheels. The stool is broken, the wheel is 
shattered, and the vehicle stops with a sudden wrench and 
jar.j 

The Count (rising in a rage from his seat). What may 
you mean ? Who are you to dare do this ? 

The Stranger. One who comes from the breadth and 
freedom of the great outside world. One who asks the 
common rights of all — air, room. One who demands light 
to cast his shadow and space to let it fall. 

The Count. Insolent varlet! — Seize him, my men! 

The Stranger (drawing his sword). Do not attempt it. 

The Count's Niece (rising from her place in the car- 
riage). Youth, you are bold. 

The Stranger (saluting). Girl, you are beautiful. 

The Count's Niece. You should not say it. 

The Stranger. I think it. And what I think I speak. 

The Count (as he orders the disabled carriage to a halting 
advance toward his own gateway). Sir, you shall hear more 
from this. 

The Stranger. And so shall you — all that your ears 
can take in. 

[The carriage, with its occupants and attendants, disap- 
pears in the castle courtyard.] 

The Stranger (to the dispersing Townspeople). There, 
my friends! Laws are made for men, not men for laws. 
We are not born to fetters ; we simply bow when they art- 
placed upon us. We are not sent to fall in with arrange- 
ments that antedate our own arrival ; the law for each of us 
is the imperious law of his own nature. 1 .ive your own life ; 
grow; expand; develop along your own lines to the ut- 



THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES 185 

most limit of your own possibilities. And lastly: as regards 
all rules and regulations and their enforcement, to believe 
in yourself and — to take your chances. Ah, you are leav- 
ing ? Good evening. 

[The men disperse toward the inn ; several of them enter 
it. There remain only the Stranger and the Host's 
Daughter. But the Watchman's Wife again looks 
down from her window, and presently the Count's Niece 
appears on a balcony above the castle entrance.] 

The Host's Daughter. Sir, once more — your reckon- 
ing. 

The Stranger. Ah, my memory is so poor ! Yours 
seems to be much better. Come here. {He lays his hatid 
iipo?i her arm and draws her dose to him.) What have we 
in this pretty bag that is fastened so trimly about so trim a 
waist ? Money, as I live ! Money; a rarity ! — let me but 
touch it ! Ah, this is copper, and that is silver ; and this, 
in the poor light we have, might pass for gold. 

The Host's Daughter. La ! it is only a new penny. 

The Stranger. Then you may keep it. As for these 
others — these bits of silver . . . 

The Host's Daughter {reaching for the coins, as lie 
jingles them in his closed hand). Sir, you are jesting. — 
Again, your reckoning. 

The Stranger. Ah, what an admirable memory. Can 
you remember this ? {He kisses her.) What else, indeed, 
have I to pay you with ? 

The Watchman's Wife {at her window). Ah ! {She 
disappears.) 

The Host's Daughter. Sir, return me my coins, and 
pay me those ten groschen due. 



j86 THE ' PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Stranger. An admirable memory, yes; but it 
might be still more exact. Remember that you have re- 
ceived a kiss. Return it — return that first. 

The Host's Daughter. Why do you tease me? — 
Well, then; there! {They kiss.) But I know a youth in 
the castle courtyard who would not approve of this ! 

[The Count's Niece observes them from her balcony, 
but remains there. At the same moment, the Host, who 
has left his strong box and a candle close to the open win- 
dow of the inn, appears in the dusk under the linden-tree.] 

The Host. How, Minna! You kissing this cheating 
stranger in the dark ? Go into the house at once. 

The Stranger. Ah, it is you ! Meddling old fool, take 
this for your pains ! 

[He draws his sword and runs the old man through. 
The Host, with a single groan, falls dead in the shadow 
of the linden- tree. J 

The Stranger. What has he left on the window-ledge? 
His strong box ; and it is open. Quick ! 

[He extinguishes the candle and rifles the box. He 
hurriedly stuffs his pockets and returns to the open space, 
which the early moon is just beginning to light.] 

The Count's Niece [from her balcony). Oh, sir. you 
li,i\ e been hast) . 

The Stranger [starting). Ah, you honor me with your 
thoughts and your — glances! Hasty? Yes. There are 



THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES 187 

times when every second counts. ( With a shade of awak- 
ening prudence?) You blame my haste ; — in what ? 

The Count's Niece. In attacking that poor old man. 

The Stranger {relieved). Is that all ? In nothing else ? 

The Count's Niece. Is he ... is he ... ? 

The Stranger. Never mind ; he does well where he 
is. Shall you tell what you have seen ? 

The Count's Niece. I ought to. 

The Stranger. Let it be a little secret between us. 

The Count's Niece. But you told my secret. 

The Stranger. Yours ? When ? What was it ? 

The Count's Niece. You pretend to have forgotten ? 
You said before all those people that I — that I was — was 
beautiful ! 

The Stranger. Ha ! Is that your secret ? It is an 
open one, believe me; — as open as the sun. And as 
dazzling. 

The Count's Niece. Hush ! Some one approaches. 

[She withdraws from her balcony. The Stranger re- 
tires into the shade. Enter the Watchman's Wife, who 
goes straight toward the tree.] 

The Watchman's Wife. Sir, you cannot hide. I see 
you. 

The Stranger (advancing). Your eyes are as keen as 
they are beautiful. With what are you come to tax me ? 

The Watchman's Wife. Oh, sir, you have done an 
evil thing. 

The Stranger {wiping his sword and buttoning his 
pocket). How do you mean ? What have you seen ? 

The Watchman's Wife. I was at my window. I — I 
saw you . . . 



188 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Stranger. You saw me what ? Quick ! quick ! 

The Watchman's Wife. O, la! you are so masterful! 
— I saw you kiss a young girl — fie ! fie ! 

The Stranger {relieved). Nothing more ? 

The Watchman's Wife. Nothing more, I hope. 

The Stranger. You saw me kiss a young girl ? A 
young girl ? How much younger than you are, I pray ? 
You [drawing her closer) are a young girl yourself. I must 
kiss you too. 

The Watchman's Wife. Oh no ! I am a married 
woman. To kiss me would be most — Oh, shame ! oh, 
shame ! 

The Stranger. A married woman, forsooth ! Matched 
to that doddering graybeard ! — there is the shame. — 
Once more, — once more ! 

The Watchman's Wife. You are a wicked man — you 
know you are. Leave me ; some one is coming. 

The Stranger. What ! will you fly me, and so soon ? 
Do you think I could not defend you ? 

[The Watchman's Wife runs in the shadows toward 
the town-gate ; the Stranger follows. Enter, from that 
same direction, the Watchman.] 

The Watchman. What, you evil youth ! — pursuing a wo- 
man thus in a public place ? Halt ; halt, I command you ! 
( I lr interposes his pike.) 

The Stranger {seizing tin- Watchman's own weapon 
and turning it against him). Die, dotard ! 

[The Watchman sinks and expires in the shadow of the 
gateway. The Stranger casts away his pike and extin- 
guishes his lantern. The Coi NT'S NTlECl .meanwhile, has 
returned to her balconj . ] 



THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES 189 

The Count's Niece. Oh, sir, another dark deed to be 
laid at your door. 

The Stranger. My door ? I have laid him at his own. 
Dark deed ? All deeds are dark at night. But, one word: 
you shall not call me " sir." 

The Count's Niece. No? What am I to call you? 
You have given me good cause to call you the worst 
of names. 

The Stranger. In spite of that, call me the best. Call 
me — my love. 

The Count's Niece. It is too soon. 

The Stranger. Then call me Rudolph. 

The Count's Niece. But — you kissed the wife before 
you killed the husband. And you kissed the maid before 
you kissed the wife. 

The Stranger. Kissed ? kissed ? Of course I kissed. 
I have practised on other lips that I may do justice to 
yours. I cannot reach them yet, but I shall reach them 
soon, and I shall kiss them a hundred times between now 
and midnight — a kiss for every furlong of the road. 

The Count's Niece. You are much too fast. 

The Stranger. If we find ourselves going too fast, we 
will lengthen the time by going farther. 

The Count's Niece. You have gone too far already. 

The Stranger. Not so far but that you can follow me. 
— I have quenched one light, but — (looking into the court- 
yard) — but . . . 

The "Count's Niece. You have quenched two. Two 
lights and two lives. 

The Stranger. But I see a third. 

The Count's Niece. It is in our court-yard. They 
are putting a new wheel on the carriage, you bold 
fellow. 



[ 9 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



The Stranger. Are the horses still in harness ? 

The Count's Niece. I fancy so. At least, they are 
not far away. 

The Stranger. Then send word to your men — {He 
looks through the archway.) They have more than a light; 
the smith has a fire. I will step within and tell them 
myself. 

The Count's Niece. There is another door at the side; 
a small one — safer — unguarded. 

The Stranger. Am I the man to slink in at a side 
door? 

The Count's Niece. And there are saddle-horses, too. 

The Stranger {cofitemptuously). Saddle-horses! — Yes, 
I have quenched two lights, as you say. Shall I quench a 
third ? 

The Count's Niece {faltering). A third ? My — my 
uncle ? 

The Stranger. You love him ? 

The Count's Niece. I hate him ! 

The Stranger. Such a tender guardian ? 

The Count's Niece. Such an odious tyrant ! 

The Stranger. Tyrant ? Has he abused you ? 

The Count's Niece. Abused me? He has beaten me! 
And he has been dragging me round the country to marry 
me against my will. 

The Stranger. Oh, shameful! — You do not want to 
marry ? 

The Count's Niece. Not against my own will. 

The Stranger. Do you know your own will ? 

The Count's Niece. I believe so. 

The Stranger. Do you recognize your ideal when you 
meet it ? 

The Count's Niece. I do. 



THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES 19 r 

The Stranger. Have you met it ? 
The Count's Niece. I have. 

The Stranger. Then go find your cloak — and your 
jewel case. 

[He draws his sword and passes under the archway into 
the court-yard of the castle. Presently a tumult is heard 
within: there are cries, clashes of arms, flingings of burning 
brands. Then there issue through the doorway men-at- 
arms with pikes and linkmen with torches. The Count 
follows, and the Stranger with his sword in one hand and 
a flaming brand in the other. All mingle in the scuffle of 
combat, and at the same time the tippling townsfolk issue 
from the tavern.] 

The Count. Impudent swaggerer! now you shall learn 
your lesson ! 

The Stranger. You, too, shall be taught all that lies in 
my power. 

[They fight. The Count is forced back toward the 
fountain and falls wounded upon its steps.] 

The Stranger {with his back against the church door). 
Let no one dare to advance ! Let no one think of taking 



[A rash young halberdier mounts the church steps and 
is cut down for his pains, dying at the church door.] 

The Schoolmaster {under the linden-tree). Here lies 
the burgomaster dead — he has killed him ! 

The Master-builder (hastening across from the totvn- 



: 9 2 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



gate). There lies the watchman in his blood — he has slain 
him ! 

The Gardener [near the fountain). That is like enough 
true; he has almost killed the count before our eyes! 

The Priest. He has desecrated the church ! 

The Master-builder (as the Stranger hurls his torch 
against the Count's doorway). And now he would fire the 
castle ! 

The Stranger. I acknowledge all three — count, watch- 
man, burgomaster. Try to understand what I have done, 
and thank me for it : I have freed you from all your 
tyrants great and small. 

[At this moment the Count's carriage is driven out 
through the doorway. Inside of it stands the Count's 
Niece, wrapped in a long mantle and armed with a heavy 
whip.] 

The Host's Daughter. He kisses me and runs away 
with her — he who has murdered my father! 

The Stranger (his foot on the carriage step). Think no 
more of your father. Think rather of a husband. 

The Watchman's Wife. He kisses me and runs away 
with her — he who lias murdered my husband! 

The Stranger (mounting into the carriage). Think no 
more of your husband. Think of another one — and a 
younger one. 

An Old Woman (rushing forth from the crowd). He 
has slain my son ! 

The Host's Daughter (screaming). What ! My Franz! 
(Both women throw themselves on the dead body of the young 
halberdier.) 



THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES 



193 



The Stranger {seating himself beside the Count's 
Niece). That is a detail. 

The Count's Niece. My hero ! 

The Stranger [half-rising again). And now, my good 
people, farewell. I have shown you the possibilities of 
life — the joys of untrammeled action. It only remains for 
you to put my precepts into practice. Entertain yourselves 
and one another. Adieu. 

The Count's Niece. But oh, Rudolph, that poor dead 
boy upon the church steps — surely there was no need of 
that. See his mother, his betrothed ; think of his twenty 
beautiful years all made naught in a moment . . . 

The Stranger. I act first and think afterward. All 
heroes do. I cannot be deterred by mere tears and groans; 
I cannot defer overmuch to human pity or to human re- 
lationships. No hero does that. 

The Master-builder (as he views the smoke and flame 
that roll out through the castle's entrance). And he has fired 
the castle too! — he would ruin so beautiful a monument 
of human industry and skill ! Oh, that a century of man's 
hand and brain should vanish in a single hour of hot- 
headed frenzy ! 

The Stranger. I cannot respect the triumphs of human 
skill. I cannot consider the continuity of art and of his- 
tory. I cannot show esteem for the mass of mere law- 
abiding plodders and their works. No hero does that. 

The Count's Niece. But surely you might have done 
with less of fury and of bloodshed. You had but to use 
the private doorway. 

The Stranger. The private doorway ! And if I had 
used it, pray would you have come down to me ? 

The Count's Niece. N no. — But those other 

women . . . 
13 



I94 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Stranger. Those other women ! If I had not 
kissed them, could I ever have kissed you? — as I do now. 

The Count's Niece. N no. 

The Stranger. Take my hand. Feel it ; smell it; kiss 
it. Ah, what do you taste ? What wets the laces at your 
wrist ? 

The Count's Niece. Blood. 

The Stranger. Ay, blood! — Now place your hand 
upon my heart : what do you feel ? 

The Count's Niece. Its throbs. 

The Stranger. Ay, its throbs. And every one of them 
sets more blood in motion than you could find in the sum 
of all the bodies round us — dead or living. Look about 
you. See these pale faces, these palsied arms. What are 
such creatures ? — mere meat for me to feed upon. Yet I 
have spared them — I have even benefited them. I have 
shown them how to live; I have rescued them from the 
tyranny of social order, from the chains of — 

The Count's Niece. Ah, noble, noble hero ! With such 
as you I would go to the ends of the earth ! 

The Stranger. Then let us depart. (To the Towns- 
people.) My friends, have you no cheer wherewith to speed 
Valor and Beauty on their way ? 

[A few voices combine in a faint and dubious crow.] 

The Count (dying upon the rim of the fountain). Girl. 
I curse you ! 

The Count's Niece. Good. I have cursed you a hun- 
dred times. 

The Stranger (clasping her to his breast). Girl, you 
are after my own heart indeed ! What is your name ? 

The COUNT'S NIECE. That is a detail. — Where are we 
going ? 



THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES 



95 



The Stranger. That is another. {He catches the whip 
from her hands and begins to belabor the coachman's bach.) 
Forward! forward! 

[The carriage pushes through the awed and bewildered 
crowd, rattles across the square and under the town-gate, 
and rolls out into the open country and the night.] 



IN SUCH A NIGHT 



IN SUCH A NIGHT- 
PERSONS. 

The Prorege of Arcopia. The Chatelaine of La Tri- 

Miss Aurelia West. nite. 

The Chevalier of Pensie- Mr. George Occident. 
ri-Vani. 

The balustrade of a classic terrace set with potted aloes 
and banked with rhododendrons. Steps lead up to a Corin- 
thian portico adorned with Pompeian frescoes, and down 
to a vast basin enlivened by many pleasure-craft. On one 
hand a long quadruple colonnade, pierced in its middle 
by a great triumphal arch, backs up an enormous golden 
figure that towers mightily above the water; on the other 
a fretted dome rises through the early evening air with an 
aspect of tranquil expectation. On the opposite side of the 
basin, similar terraces and porticos at once round out and 
enclose the shadowed whiteness of the scene. 

Present: the Chatelaine, Aurelia West and the 
Prorege — a man of fifty, who wears a pointed beard 
and carries himself with an air of serene and amicable 
condescension. 



Aurelia. The consecrated moment is at hand. A great 
light is about to shine and your conversion about to be 

199 



2 oo THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

accomplished. There is no one but has yielded to the 
force and beauty of the evangel so soon to address you. 

The Chatelaine. I am in your hands — as ever. Work 
your will upon me. 

Aurelia. Then I begin. The universe is mine to com- 
mand, and it is my design to make it freely yours. {She 
waves her hand aloft.) There ! do you see that ? 

The Chatelaine [looking into the deepening blue of the 
sky). The evening star? I see it — yes. But I have 
often seen it from my own doorstep. 

Aurelia. — Away up in your snowy and secluded little 
valley, you would say, among your broken pines and your 
riven mountain-peaks. But you shall soon see other stars 
that you have never seen before — either there or else- 
where. And for every one that twinkles overhead to-night, 
a hundred more shall twinkle beneath our feet. Look ! 

[The walls of the basin, throughout their whole vast 
sweep, are suddenly outlined by thousands of tiny lights 
which, with a tremulous eagerness, hasten to double them- 
selves in the flood beneath. A moment afterward a second 
line of living light runs swiftly along cornices, attics and 
pediments, and rescues from the descending darkness long 
rows of shining statues set high in air. Other stars appear 
in the heavens.! 



The Prorege (leaning in absorption upon the balustrade). 
Strophe and antistrophe: the choir celestial and the choir 
terrestrial. 

The Chatelaine. Thanks for your stars. And the 
wake of that gondola multiplies every one of them into a 
yellow thousand. Thanks for them all. But — 



IN SUCH A NIGHT— 201 

Aurelia. But stars are not enough, you would say. 
Then you shall have more than stars. 

[She waves her hand toward the colonnade. Through 
its ranks of thick-set pillars a vast pale disk is seen to be 
rising slowly above a limitless expanse of water.] 

The Chatelaine. O, conjurer ! — But, after all, it is only 
our old friend, the moon. We have seen her rise over 
many and many a lake — you and I together. 

Aurelia. Ingrate! One moon, then, is not enough. 
Well, you shall have a hundred : moons that do not rise, 
but simply — come. See ! 

[Upon the instant many scores of white globes blossom 
dazzlingly in midair; they flood with their moony light the 
long stretches of white arcades and porticos and mingle 
their opalescent gleam with the yellow ripples that dapple 
the bosom of the great basin.] 

The Prorege [with a fond paternal glance toward 
Aurelia). The harmony of the spheres: who could evoke 
it or apprehend it save one in full accord with her environ- 
ment? 

The Chatelaine {with a mounting interest). Your 
moons are enchanting. Enchanting, — but — 

Aurelia. But ! but ! — My hundred moons are not 
enough ? Are you meaning to ask me for something 
more ? 

The Chatelaine. Yes. Give me (for you can give me 
anything at all) — give me — the sun. 

Aurelia. You shall have it. Quick ! — shut your eyes ! 



202 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

[From some point high above the spectacle (the specta- 
cle so far as yet revealed) a great red eye glares suddenly 
through the darkness and sends down from across the 
basin a wide and blinding shaft of light.] 

The Chatelaine {starting, and covering her eyes). Ah, 
magician ! 

[When the Chatelaine looks again, four or five other 
lights have joined the first. They overlace the heavens ; 
they sweep with immense rapidity the sculptured sky-lines 
of many long-drawn palaces ; they accomplish the sudden 
evocation (from the darkness) of unseen domes and un- 
suspected towers.] 

The Chatelaine. It is magnificent, but — it is not the 
sun. You have given me comets, and comets will not 
suffice. ( With kindling enthusiasm.) Give me the sun — 
the sun! Try again. Surely, one failure in such a task 
should bring you neither discredit nor discouragement. 

Aurelia. Very well. I will make a second attempt. — 
Look! 

[From above the serried figures that crest the colonnade 
a thin red line of light rushes heavenward and bursts into 
a broad glory of yellow and purple and green.] 

The Chatelaine. Ah ! that is the s (A second roch- 
et rises and bursts. And a third.) No, no ; that is not the 
sun — there can be but one sun. You are giving me 
meteors merely. But you can achieve the sun for us yet : 
you are on your own ground — you arc the wielder of your 



IN SUCH A NIGHT- 



203 



own will. In the accomplishment of such a wonder even 
a second failure need not disgrace you. Come, then; 
come. Your meteors are glorious, but give us the greater 
glory. 

The Prorege {rapt). Give us the Greatest Glory. 

Aurelia [with a deep breath of invincible determination). 
I will. {She throws out both hands toward the other end 
of the basin.) Behold it ! 

[An invisible band of musicians has begun to play; their 
sonorous and voluminous tones are wafted rhythmically 
through the length and breadth of the court. At the same 
moment two great fountains throw up their lofty and clus- 
tered sprays in changing columns of red and amber and 
green. Between these two fountains a third, vaster than 
either and peopled with many fantastic figures, is suddenly 
redeemed from the dusk by a quick-flung pencil of lilac 
light. Its waters fall plashing over many steps, and far 
above the pride of its topmost figure a vast dome, loftier 
than all else and more dazzling than all else combined, 
suddenly flashes through the blueness of the night. It is 
ribbed with light, and crowned with fire, and girdled with 
torches ; it appropriates and concentrates all the splendor 
and melody and magnificence of the entire spectacle.] 

Aurelia. There is the Greatest Glory. [Silence. 

The Prorege {after an interval). Alas, poor Arcopia ! 

The Chatelaine {softly). Its lustre is dimmed. 

Aurelia {vaingloriously). What can be cited, between 
all the borders of Adria and of Illyria ? Arcopia Felix is 
eclipsed ! 

The Prorege {leaning meditatively upon the balustrade). 
That is true. [Silence. 



204 



THE PUPPET-BOOTH 



Aurelia [to the Chatelaine). The stage is set and 
lighted. Do you wish me to summon the performers ? 

The Chatelaine. Many, many thousands must be here 
already. All round me I hear the click and shuffle of myr- 
iads of feet, the night air is full of voices, and every light- 
est breeze from the water brings the sound of music to our 
ears. Surely the whole world has assembled. Look ! 
Behind those aloes a group of men in yellow turbans; 
under that portico others arrayed in izz and scimitar. 

Aurelia. They cannot fill such a stage — in such a night ; 
nor could thousands more like them — or unlike them. 
And since we ourselves have been debarred from taking a 

spectacular part Oh, why did his Highness refuse ? 

The Rajah of Kajama made a triumphal progress through 
these noble canals ; the Exarch of Albania was received 
in state beneath that blazing dome. The Prorege of Arco- 
pia, and he alone, has failed of the honors that — 

The Chatelaine. Hush! our great friend's incognito 
must remain inviolate. You would not betray him by a 
rash and vain ambition. Recall his unfortunate experience 
at Rome . . . 

Aurelia. I say no more. We remain nonentities, then, 
— with all the others. The stage stands vacant, the spec- 
tacle incomplete. And one element more — the essential 
element — is missing: the one that makes the world go 
round ! Without that element, all is a mere row of value- 
less ciphers. But put that figure at the head — ! If only 
he were here ! 

The Chatelaine. He, Aurelia ? (She seizes Ai ki i i \'s 
hand.) My dear girl ! — and you never told me! 

Aurelia. You misunderstand me. Bertha, h is /who 
would wish to seize your hand. 

The Chatelaink {turning away with a sudden blush). 



IN SUCH A NIGHT - 



205 



Do not make another such attempt, Aurelia. Let us do 
nothing to recall those old days at La Trinite. I have 
forgotten Count Fin-de-Siecle ; I have forgotten Baron 
Zeitgeist. I was but a poor child of nature in those simple 
times. 

Aurelia. Nor are you completely a child of artifice 
yet, my dear. — And you have forgotten the Marquis of 
Tempo-Rubato as well ? 

The Chatelaine. I have kept his picture, but I seldom 
think of him. 

Aurelia {after a long and thoughtful pause). If only he 
were here ! 

The Chatelaine. I beg, Aurelia, that you will not refer 
to the marquis again. When we parted at La Trinite we 
parted forever. 

Aurelia. I am not speaking of the marquis. I am 
speaking of Kim. 

The Chatelaine. Of him ? 

Aurelia. Of him. I do not speak his name, because 
I have never heard it. But between us he needs no name, 
I think. 

The Chatelaine {blushing again). Be careful, Aurelia. 
Do not ask the impossible once more. 

Aurelia. The impossible? Nothing is impossible — 
here ! {After a pause.) Where did we first see him ? At 
Caprile. He gave up his room to us at the inn. And be- 
fore we awoke in the morning he was half way over the 
mountains to Cortina. Where did we meet him next ? 
At Amain. He was painting the cathedral. Are there 
not as worthy things to paint all round us here? — Where 
did we encounter him the third time ? Where ? where ? 

The Chatelaine [stammering). I — I have forgotten. 

Aurelia. You remember perfectly. Where ? where ? 



206 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

The Chatelaine. In the Roman Forum. 

Aurelia. In the Roman Forum — right. What was he 
doing ? 

The Chatelaine. Sketching the ruins of the Palatine. 

Aurelia. Sketching the ruins of the Palatine — wrong. 
He was resurrecting the Palatine — the Palatine of Cali- 
gula. It was a work of taste, of knowledge, of imagina- 
tion. How he heaped up that magnificence and glorified 
it ! — But there are grander things all round us here. 

The Chatelaine. Perhaps you are right. 

Aurelia. I know I am right. And here he ought to 
be. — Come; you think of him now and then? 

The Chatelaine (in a tremor). Now and then. 

Aurelia. And you have dreamed of him more than 
once? 

The Chatelaine. Not more than once. 

Aurelia. Ah ! Once ? 

The Chatelaine. Once. 

Aurelia. What was your — ? But, no; that dream 
shall remain your own. 

The Prorege (coming out of his reverie). Time is pass- 
ing. The throng is moving on. Much more must await 
our attentive senses. Let us move about too, for a little. 
We have several moments to spare before the one that 
must find us again upon this spot. 

Aurelia. The moment that must find us again upon 
this spot, your Highness ? 

The Prorege. Come. 

[They pass away. A moment later a gondola full of 
colored lanterns and tinkling mandolins glides up to the 
landing-stage. Mr. George Occident alights and ascends 
to the terrace. He is followed by the Chevalier of Pen- 
sieri-Vani.] 



IN SUCH A NIGHT- 



207 



Occident. Have I redeemed my promise ? 

The Chevalier. You have more than redeemed it, my 
dear Occident. 

Occident. I have levied upon the whole world. I 
have brought you a gondola from Venice, and terraces and 
quays and bridges from Dresden and Florence, and balus- 
trades and aloes from the Pamfili Gardens — 

The Chevalier. I recognize them. 

Occident. — and colonnades from Rome, and porticos 
from Athens, and domes and towers from Toledo and Se- 
ville, and fountains from Versailles — 

The Chevalier. But Versailles could show no such 
splendor of color. 

Occident. — and far-flashing lights that not all the 
coasts you have skirted can parallel, and banners that 
might easily out-fete Paris itself, and a dome whose bright 
and sudden coming outshines St. Peter's own ; and people, 
people, people — in such variety as even no Galata Bridge 
could hope to rival. See ; those Arabs striding along in 
white burnooses; presently we shall have some green- 
skirted Egyptians, or some American aborigines in ochre 
and eagle-feathers — my ancestral stock. And to-morrow 
you shall see other peoples from far beyond your ken. 
They will wear tallow in their curls, or they will bind bark 
fringes round their waists and knees and ankles, or they 
will shriek and caper in next to nothing at all. And to- 
morrow noon you shall hear my wife sing the Inflammatus 
yonder in that white hall beneath those bursting bombs. 

The Chevalier. Those bombs, those sunbursts — where 
do they fall ? What lies beyond that colonnade ? 

Occident. A lake. 

The Chevalier. And what bounds its further side ? Ah, 
you do not know — we are both too newly come. But let 



2 o8 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

us be generous ; let us rear there a snowy chain of moun- 
tain-peaks — the spectacle lacks nothing else. 

Occident (to himself). His thoughts are on the moun- 
tain-peaks ! (Aloud.) Ah ! 

The Chevalier. And the city which has reared this 
majestic manifestation — a city that I have not yet seen : 
how can we figure it save as a place of beauty — compacted 
of such glorious streets and palaces as must be fit for a right 
noble people ? 

Occident. A ah ! 

The Chevalier. And that people, I think, we have no 
choice but to endow with decorum and serenity and dig- 
nity and high resolve and noble purpose and 

Occident. A a ah! 

The Chevalier. Your wife, you say, sings here to- 
morrow ? For you, then, this magnificent thing is com- 
plete. For me . . . 

Occident. Make it complete. Make your life complete. 
Make yourself complete. 

The Chevalier. The Prorege was not to be alone, I 
think. We are in advance of the time, I see. 

Occident. Alone ? I do not know. I wish that she 
might be here too. 

The Chevalier. And I. 

Occident. You saw her last at ? 

The Chevalier. At Geneva. And lost her promptly in 
the summer's hurly-burly. Her presence here to-night 
would round out everything to perfection. 

Occident. She would add the one touch of nature — 
would add it to your thousand touches of art. 

The Chevalier. It is the one touch needed. 

Occident. She could give it. 

The Chevalier. I should not evade it, 



IN SUCH A NIGHT- 



209 



Occident. You have visited La Trinite? 

The Chevalier. I went there once with the Queen — 
that summer fortnight among the High Alps. The Chate- 
laine was absent ; she had gone to Paris. 

Occident. To Paris ? For the touch of nature ? 

The Chevalier. Paris did not spoil her. Nothing has 
spoiled her. Nothing could spoil her. I only ask to find 
her here. 

Occident. In such a night 

The Chevalier. In such a night. 

[Aurelia, the Chatelaine and the Prorege return.] 

The Prorege. Welcome, my dear Occident ; welcome, 
my dear Cavaliere ! Our little party is now complete. 
This is not the first party that I have made complete — as 
my dear Occident may recall. 

Occident. I do, with gratitude, Altezza. It is you who 
have made me what I am, in more senses than one. 

The Prorege. Yes, my dear fellow; it was I who gave 
you an education and a wife. 

[The Prorege presents the Chevalier and Occident 
to the Chatelaine and Aurelia West. The Chatelaine 
and the Chevalier bow in silence.] 

Aurelia {talking very loud and very fast). Ah, vous 
void joliment bien ensemble ! — master and pupil I mean, 
of course. Master and pupil — what else could I mean ? 
Yes, I have heard about it. Nothing of the sort was 
ever done for me ; I was left to work out my own salva- 
tion — to say nothing of that of another . . . 

The Prorege. Make it, rather, pupil and master. It is 
14 



2io THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

I who am now on the learner's bench. It is to my former dis- 
ciple that I am indebted for this view of the wider world — 

Occident. The slightest possible return ! 

The Prorege. — a view that has dimmed the Arcopian 
glories forever. And you (to Aurelia), you. too, have 
lent a hand. 

Aurelia (with a nervous eagerness). But there are 
glories that never can be dimmed: the glories of the High 
Alps — the glories of La Trinite and of its mistress. And 
so, my dear Bertha — ( She looks round, suddenly.) Why, 
where is Bertha? Ah, there she stands yonder in the 
shadow of that big aloe. I am with you at once, my 
love . . . (She moves toward the Chatelaine and the 
Chevalier.) 

The Prorege (intercepting her). Mademoiselle, the foun- 
tains are playing, the music is swelling, these myriads of 
lights are glittering, the peoples of the world are footing it 
past us ; the spectacle will not last forever — let us enjoy 
the brief moment that it does. Take my arm; I will show 
you the moonlight as it wavers round the prow of that 
gondola; I will give you abetter opportunity to hear those 
mandolins — which are receiving the tribute of attention 
from all ears save those that they are addressing. Follow 
us, Occident, and let your men arrange your poor old 
friend's cushions properly — he has been so long upon 
his feet. 

Aurelia. But tell me; how do you call that gentleman ? 

The Prorege. You heard his name. 

Aurelia. But where does he come from ? 

The Prorege. From a far country — like myself. 

Aurelia. But who is he — what is he ? 

The Prorege. A friend of mine, — a very clear friend of 
mine. That should be enough. 



IN SUCH A NIGHT— 2 n 

Aurelia. I heard the name, yes; but I never heard it 
before. 

The Prorege. Your friend has heard it. 

Aurelia. Bertha ? Impossible ! 

The Prorege. You contradict me ? 

Aurelia. Pardon, Altezza. But she has never mentioned 
it to me. 

The Prorege. She has kept it for herself. But you 
have had other names to make free with, have you 
not? 

Aurelia. Your Highness rebukes me ! — me, whom 
she has found so good and true a friend ! 

The Prorege. I rebuke you ? Not at all. No, no ; 
there must not be the least touch of severity — in such a 
night. But there is this to bear in mind : your opportunity 
you have already had — 

Aurelia. I know; at La Trinite itself. 

The Prorege. — and to-night's opportunity is mine. I 
have allowed you to set the stage ; you must allow me 
to direct the little drama. Do you not see why our dear 
girl asked so much ? — and why even the sun, moon and 
stars were not enough ? Did you not apprehend that the 
greatest glory was soon to be eclipsed by the Greatest 
Glory of All ? 

Aurelia {looking backward). I am a poor blind 
creature, indeed ! 

Occident {who is overtaking them, and into whose face 
she speaks). One might well be blinded in such a blaze of 
splendor; — the fountains an untamable tumult of color, 
and six great sunbursts — see them! — rising all at once! 

[The three move toward the gondola. Presently the 
Chevalier and the Chatelaine follow.] 



212 THE PUPPET-BOOTH 

Aurelia {holding out her hands to them, impulsively). 
In such a night ! — 

The Chevalier. In such a night ? No such night has 
ever been before, believe me. 

[The Five enter the gondola and glide toward the great 
golden dome. In the general brilliancy their faces, their 
voices, their lights and their music are merged and lost.] 
























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